Even the most conservative commentators have enthusiastically applauded the credentials of Sarah Palin, a career-aspiring mother of five. The right’s widespread acceptance of Palin as the potential next vice president, however, actually signals defeat on the “working mom” battleground of the culture wars. As Ellen Goodman points out in a column in the Boston Globe, “Palin has made it politically incorrect to criticize working mothers. They are the demilitarized zone of the cultural battleground.”

Goodman compares statements made by influential conservatives before and after Palin was added to the McCain ticket. They are quite revealing. James Dobson, for example, at one time partly attributed society’s breakdown in the family to “working mothers.” He now says, “I believe Sarah Palin is God’s answer.”

Phyllis Schlafly once said the “flight from home is a flight from yourself, from responsibility, from the nature of woman.” As Goodman notes, Schlafly now says, “I think a hardworking, well-organized ceo type can handle it very well.”

Another telling comparison: At the 1992 Republican convention, Vice President Dan Quayle’s wife, Marilyn, said during her televised speech, “Most women do not wish to be liberated from their essential natures as women. Most of us love being mothers or wives, which gives our lives a richness that few men or women get from professional accomplishments alone.” Stopping just short of calling “women’s liberation” a complete flop, Mrs. Quayle added, “Not everyone believed that the family was so oppressive that women could only thrive apart from it.”

Sarah Palin is no Marilyn Quayle. “To any critics who say a woman can’t think and work and carry a baby at the same time, I’d just like to escort that Neanderthal back to the cave,” Palin told the Anchorage Daily News back in March when she revealed that she was seven months pregnant while still clocking in at the governor’s mansion every day.

It’s no wonder the Democrats have found it so difficult to counterpunch John McCain’s appointment of Palin.

What we wrote following the last presidential election now rings truer than ever: “No Republican victory will ever resurrect our nationwide moral collapse.”