Unknown Palin produces flurry of calls: 'It could be you'

Our home phone started ringing as word spread about McCain's astonishing selection as a running mate.

Devoted mother of five with three girls and two boys, Type AA personality, accomplished outdoorswoman, avid pro-life, media savvy, great speaker, all-around dynamo, great husband.

"Must be your wife," was chorus that came on the other end of the phone all afternoon. It is true, that my wife Teri is a mother of five, with three girls and two boys, Type AA personality, accomplished outdoorswoman, avid pro-life, media savvy, great speaker and an all-around dynamo. No comment on the great husband.

She does have many of the unique attributes of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska and John McCain's surprising choice to run with him as the Republican vice-presidential nominee.

After she stood up there on Friday with her family-minus one son/soldier headed to Iraq - there were probably lots of phone calls made to "hockey moms" as Palin called herself, saying "that could be you."

Undoubtedly there were phone calls to soccer mom's and Type A women and the thousands of all-around dynamo's who toil in the trenches of their homes and offices every day across America all starting with the same question: "Did you see that woman McCain picked?"

Few outside of caribou country had ever seen her, listened to her speak or even heard of her before word leaked of her selection shortly before Mr. McCain introduced her at a rally in Dayton, Ohio.

But from Arlington Heights to Arlington, Texas, she has come out of nowhere and seems to have touched a nerve in women who see themselves in her sudden ascension.

Whether women support her political, social and moral positions; whether they are members of her party or even whether they will vote for her and McCain, it would be difficult to find a thinking woman (especially a mother) who doesn't delight in the recognition that Palin is receiving.

"A Hail Mary choice," was the gut reaction from Barack Obama spokesman Bill Burton.

That was an unfortunate choice of words by Mr. Burton, even as we headed into the richly cliched first weekend of college football.

Millions of American women (and men) do Hail Mary on a regular basis and I'm sure many of them resented such an analogy.

Over the weekend, an Obama campaign announcement floated the first of several public polls that showed Palin's selection "scored less well with women than men."

I'm not sure whether the clever use of the word "scored" was intentional or whether Mr. Obama's handlers meant to insinuate that men liked Gov. Palin because of her looks, but those aren't what this column is about.

This is about what women in Chicago and the suburbs and across the country felt when someone who very recently did what they do. They make every day labor day.

Make breakfast. Slurp a coffee. Get the kids off. Workout a little. Get to work. In between reports due and meetings, take a dozen phone calls from the kids. Set up rides. Schedule dinner, work on the PTA agenda, sneak in a Google search of next weekend's movies; grab lunch, finish work, get to the train, watch a soccer game, make dinner, cleanup, go to sleep. Those are things that mothers of five do. So do mothers of one, three and six.

Unlike Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton never came across as someone who did those things. As devoted as Mrs. Clinton's following was, when she declared for the presidency I don't think there were many phone calls between girlfriends saying "that could be you."

As distraught as her supporters were that Barack Obama didn't name her as his running mate, even if he had the feel-good feeling would have been different than with Palin.

This isn't about politics or even government. It really doesn't have anything to do with the campaign or the election.

But for a moment in time, it isn't a bad thing that women who go unrecognized feel a sense of accomplishment-even by proxy.

I have no idea if a mother of five with three girls and two boys, Type AA personality, is an accomplished outdoorswoman, avid pro-life, media savvy, great speaker and an all-around dynamo can be elected vice-president.

But take it from someone who is married to a woman with all those attributes: Don't tell her she can't do it.

• Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by email at chuckgoudie@gmail.com