During last night’s presidential debate, Republican Tea Party (GOTP) footnote Willard Mitt Romney boasted how as governor of Massachusetts, he was so frustrated by the lack of qualified women for positions in his cabinet he sent women’s groups out to actively recruit them.

“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,” he said.

There’s just one small problem with Willard’s story, it’s not true. According to news sources, a bipartisan coalition of women’s groups known as MassGAP approached Romney and his Democratic challenger Shannon O’Brien before the 2002 gubernatorial election and pressured each to sign a pledge to appoint more women if elected.

Liz Levin, chairwoman of MassGAP at the time, reportedly told reporters during the 2002 governor’s race, the group spent months identifying, vetting and collecting resumes of qualified women for the high-level appointments.

“They told us … that they were going to send [the binders] to us,” O’Brien recalled in a Wednesday interview with The Huffington Post. “Whoever won was going to get this.”

Carol Hardy-Fanta, former co-chair of MassGAP’s higher education subcommittee agreed with that assessment, “He didn’t go out looking for these binders,” she said.

So, what’s the problem?

Well, Willard said during last night’s debate he initiated the search, “I went to my staff, and I said, how come all the people for these jobs are — are all men?

“They said, well, these are the people that have the qualifications. And I said, well, gosh, can’t we — can’t we find some — some women that are also qualified?

“And — and so we — we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women’s groups and said, can you help us find folks? And I brought us whole binders full of — of women.”

Once more Willard reached into his past and pulled out a half-truth, a prevarication, a lie. He didn’t initiate the search. He didn’t think to himself, “Gee, we need more women.” He’s a fraud, and he thinks women are too dumb to see he’s a fraud. Problem for Romney is he thinks he’s starring in an episode of Mad Men and “dames” just won’t catch on.