Brit Hume is my favorite television anchor guy; his dry wit and perfect delivery are just the right balance to his no-nonsense and incisive reporting. But Brit got one wrong during the initial weekend talk cycle following Governor Palin’s nomination when he gently scolded his colleagues on the stage as they showed their excitement at Palin's impending nomination. His reproof would have been accurate - had it been applied to presidential elections as far back as anyone cares to remember. But if the reaction of the woman who was seated beside me on the sofa as Palin made her first appearance that weekend is any indication, this time it is different.
Her generous and humble recognition of Geraldine Ferraro snapped shut the synapses - in my wife’s view - of women's ages-old fight against that glass ceiling we boys like to claim we can’t see. My Phyllis Jean said it best right to Brit’s face (or at the television set, anyway): “Not this time, Brit, not this time.”
What Brit Hume meant - that it’s really just about the top of the ticket when election time comes - was as incorrect this time as it was dead-on historically speaking. Again, this one is different for some very big and unique reasons.
First, the women who have played the most important roles in post-modern American politics have, with the rare exception of a Hillary Clinton or a Kay Bailey Hutchinson, been appointed, not elected, to their ultimate positions. Secretaries of State, White House Counsels, Chiefs of Staff to presidents, all have gotten there by appointment and have really done little - or should we say been permitted to do little - to lead in the executive sense. As for the likes of Mrs. Clinton, her “toughness” had more the flavor of ruthlessness than that of principled will, and she owed her ascendancy to the powerful - if regrettable - success of her husband.
So difference #1 is Palin, a woman consistently successful as a repeatedly-elected executive. Made of real strength and possessed of the kind of bedrock life experience that is so typical of most women but so diametrically opposed to that of the “ruling class,” the governor is as familiar to the Heartland as she is a complete mystery to the Media and the Washington Elites.
Next, for the first time since Reagan, there is a candidate who is neither defined by nor the creature of those same elites. And not having been “created” by them, she is in no way beholden to them.
This beautiful woman represents to women - and to a lot of their husbands - all across the country the embodiment of the kind of steadfast commitment and relentless focus on marriage and family that we all revere out here in fly-over country. For those in Middle America whose lives are defined and lived out in the architecture of raising kids, forming and nurturing long-term friendships, and working diligently to keep marriages together, she represents the whole package. And under-girding and enfolding the whole picture is that usually unspoken religious faith that has been the bulwark of the American Republic always. That of course drives the secular humanists at the networks and the New York Times insane - evidence the petulant and pedantic sneer of a Charlie Gibson when confronted with a woman of faith.
Finally, there is the star factor.
Like the great women of the big screen, this one does some pretty remarkable things - shooting straight, skinning big game, fishing for a living with her husband in the frigid waters of Alaska’s coast and interior lakes, all while delivering and raising a houseful of energetic kids. But the difference between her and the “stars” is that she can really do these things. And therein lies real stardom.
When the vast majority of voters in the Red States as well as the usually-undecided folk who wait till the last minute to decide see Sarah Palin, they see an authentic American icon - a hero in the most dramatic sense - but one whose claim to fame is in never having pursued fame at all.
She is what she is, a wife, mom, PTA member and friend who happened to have been placed in the road of Providence at a time when heroes are in short supply.
Sorry boys, but the best man for the job just turned out to be a woman, and she will indeed make a profound difference this time.
