A guy who will say "Binders full of women" will call you a 'girl' in the boardroom and ask you to get him a cup of coffee.
A guy who touts how many women he has hired in senior positions will tell you some of his best friends are blacks, gays or Jews. A guy who says "Binders full of women" will have as his running mate a man who sponsored a Personhood amendment and 8 anti abortion bills redefining rape... while telling you he's for women!
Chances are, he will have a wife who says, "you people" and a kid who wants to punch the lights out of the leader of the free world cause he called his father the liar that he is while rumored to have invested in electronic voting machines in Ohio. He will be a two faced hypocrite who's against the 47 percent in private while he's for the 100 percent when 70 million people are watching.
There's this huge disconnect between what Mitt says and what he does...
"My daughter, my sister. OMG, he's Faye Dunaway!
A guy who says "Binders full of women' will say and do anything to become president of the United States of America.
I've worked with guys like Mitt Romney for 40 years. He's the guy on 'another floor' with perfect teeth, monogrammed shirts, and a desk as big as my first apartment in New York. And when you were summoned to his office... it was never good news.
Do you know why I'm so pissed at this 'binders' line?
I grew up in Hollywood in the 1950's. During my first gynecological exam, the doctor smiled and smugly announced, "This is my bowling grip!"
In 1963 when I was 19 years old, I went to the head of the Film Editors union to apply for a job. In those days you had to be born into the trade unions, which I was. My late father, Jack Bachom had started the union after his years at Walt Disney Studios. I was given two reasons why I could not be an apprentice.
1."The bad language that goes on in the cutting room."
2."The film cans are too heavy for women to carry."
It's an endemic attitude that I have experienced over the years but never really thought much about ...until he made that remark during the debate. I started getting mad...really mad that this guy with such a condescending attitude towards women could actually become president in the most important election of my lifetime.
My career in advertising began during the Mad Men days (Season 5) and even when I was a senior vice president, I was called a "girl producer." Women were called girls and sexual innuendo abounded. It was assumed that a path to promotion was either through sexual favors or by being 'one of the boys.'
"I slept my way to the top" I quipped when asked how I got into the business. If you were decisive and firm, you were a bitch. Another 'girl producer' friend said to me once,
"If I screwed all the people I got credit for screwing I wouldn't have time to do my job."
Yesterday, when I heard the phone call from Romney to CEOs from last June, implying that it's not illegal to 'suggest' to their workers who to vote for, that their jobs might depend upon it...my stomach turned remembering the time I had a pre production meeting to produce a multi-million dollar commercial and was called back into the bosses office...
"Sandi, if this job doesn't work out...it's your ass!"
...and it was! Not long after, I was fired.
We all know the feeling, dodging the Sword of Damocles, walking on eggs, waiting for the call, the look, the panic and physical sensation of nausea and fear you experience when you suspect you're going to be fired.
So last week, when I met Mary Jo Kerr of Sensata Technologies from Freeport Illinois, a producer of sensors and controls for manufacturers in the automotive, appliance and aircraft field... a Bain Capital owned company in which Mitt Romney retains a 51 percent ownership, I swear, if my camera had not recorded the story I would not have believed it.
How, with only one translator, she had to train the Chinese and Mexican workers to replace her before the entire factory was outsourced to China by the end of the year. Adding insult to injury... they took down the American flag.
But what I remember most from the day of the Bainport Bus Tour rally, were the jolly French workers who didn't speak a word of English, whose jobs were outsourced to China by Bain owned Samsonite in 2006 and hadn't found work since, smiling and laughing, they shouted something to my camera...
"Nous les petit sont forte!"
"We the small ones, we are very strong!"