Jonathan Birge

One can credit the academic far Left with the current climate of gender politics, where the difficult goal of equality has largely been forgotten and in its place we have the expedient of reverse sexism. So, it is an irony that must be pretty damn savory to those on the Religious Right that the same identity politics invented by the Religious Left have led millions of independent women across the country to rally behind McCain simply because they can identify with the profoundly unqualified Sarah Palin as one of them. From a recent Post article:

“She justifies what we do every day,” said Beth Tweddle, who works in sales and carried a sign she drew herself, saying “We [heart] Pit Bull Palin.” Tweddle was already a McCain supporter, she said, “but Sarah just energizes us and got us out here because she does what we do, she lives like we do.”

We don’t live in an age of looking up to authority anymore. We don’t cotton to the idea that there are people who are our betters. In this time of “American Idol,” bedroom bloggers and the belief that experience, knowledge and education don’t necessarily mean a whole lot, Palin is a symbol, a statement that anyone can make it if he or she really tries.

Karla Rupp, a real estate agent, went to see Palin on behalf of her three children, especially the one who has multiple disabilities and is in a nursing home. Val Lewis couldn’t stay away — “that’s how empowering it is to have Sarah up there. I have four children; she has five. And we get it done.”

…

“She’s just as flawed as we are,” Tweddle said. “It’s not the fact that she’s a woman but the way she does it all. And let me tell you: There’re more American parents with unwed pregnant teenaged children than American parents with Harvard grads. She’s real.”

For hours, I walked through the crowd talking to people, mostly women. Again and again, I heard variations on this idea: “She’s more like us than Obama, McCain or any of the others,” as Rupp put it. “She knows what we go through.”

…

Most people I spoke to readily conceded that Palin lacks experience with or knowledge of many important national and foreign issues. But, as Allison McGarvey, a teacher who lives in Stafford County, said, Palin is “a courageous woman, and what she doesn’t know, she can learn quickly. Let’s face it, no president knows all the issues. Anyway, I don’t see how a candidate can pick one stand and just stick to it. The world situation changes every day. It’s their moral and ethical background that’s important.”

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Like many at the rally, Victoria Robinson-Worst sees Palin’s lack of experience as an asset. “I know people who have experience who are totally incompetent,” said Robinson-Worst, who lives in Loudoun County, designs wedding flowers and raises two children. “And I know people who have no experience who step in and get it right. I mean, women can do amazing things.”

Yup. They sure can.