Romney's 'binders full of women' goes viral as 65 million watch debate
The town hall debate between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney drew an average 65.6 million viewers on Tuesday. The most talked-about remark was Romney's about "binders full of women."
Romney'binders' remark goes viral
The comment went viral on the Internet, "spawning jokes, mash-ups and musical memes." said the Los Angeles Times.
But women's rights advocates said the comment nevertheless shed light on the serious issue of workplace inequality.
According to Nielsen , NBC beat all comers, drawing 13.8 million viewers from 9 p.m. to 10:45 p.m. ABC was second , averaging 12.5 million and Fox News was third with 11.1 million.
CBS drew 8.92 million viewers, while CNN, Obama's choice for the Biden debate, drew only 5.75 million.
The audience was slightly less than the 67.2 million viewers who tuned in for the first Obama-Romney debate on October 3.
Nearly half the audience (30.7 million) was over 55. Only 11.2 million were aged 18-to-34 .
The most rewound and re-watched moment of all was, according to Tivo, when Romney talked about “binders full of women.”
Speaking about his efforts to recruit women to work in the Massachusetts State House, he said, “I went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks,’ and they brought us whole binders full of women."
Twitter erupted. An account @RomneyBinders went live producing 32,000 followers in just two hours. Yesterday afternoon, the account had 33,565 followers.
Obama and Romney meet for a final debate on Oct. 22 at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida.