John McCain may think that Alaska governor Sarah Palin will help him pick off the Hillary voters, but the fact that she went back to work in April three days after giving birth to a premature baby with Downs’ Syndrome has already got women buzzing on the web with questions about her judgment and priorities. Obviously 2008 is a lot different from 1992, when Hillary, who wasn’t even running for office, was heavily criticized for her decision to pursue a career after having a child. But even in these more enlightened times, women on both sides of the political spectrum may frown on Palin’s decision to hit the national campaign trail at this particular time of her life. (And of course, we’ll all be wondering: will she bring her breast pump?)
Besides, Palin certainly won’t be much help to those women trying to nudge the country into embracing more family-friendly workplace policies. John McCain doesn’t actually have any work-family policies to speak of anyway, but now, when women argue for the need for paid family leave, the Republicans will only have to trot out Palin to illustrate why women don’t really need it.
