From Seneca Falls to … Sarah Palin?

There is clearly something that mothers find affirming about seeing one of their own being sure of herself. Palin somehow manages to come across as a strong mother of five, not a politician who happens to have kids. She validates motherhood by reviving the archetype of the impossibly confident supermother, simultaneously managing teenagers, teething and the trials of a vice presidential campaign. No wonder she drinks Red Bull.

"The one good thing, whatever comes of this, is that social conservatives have started saying, 'Don't you dare say a woman can't be a mom and take on a high-powered career'," says Stephanie Coontz, author of "Marriage, a History." "That's the first time we've ever heard them say that. We ought to be able to move past the mommy wars now."

The pioneer women politicians were not nursing babies through teleconferences. Few mothers of young children ever ran for office, and the first two women in Congress were widows of male politicians who swept in to take the place of their men. (To date, 46 women have succeeded their late husbands there. Margaret Chase Smith [below], dubbed "The Lady From Maine," filled the seat left by her husband in 1940, and served in Congress for 32 years. She was also the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for the presidency by one of the major parties.) Pat Schroeder was the first mother of small children elected to Congress, and had a 2-year-old daughter when she campaigned in 1972. She was inundated with queries from journalists about how she would manage. Bella Abzug, a fellow congresswoman, called to congratulate her, adding: "I hear you have young children. You aren't going to be able to do it. It's impossible."

Women who did have children initially insisted they combined work and family reasonably effortlessly. Then—representing a broader discomfort among working women in the 1980s with the mythology of the superwoman who could raise kids, triumph in her career and run marathons in high heels without breaking a sweat—many revealed it wasn't easy. Rep. Connie Morella of Maryland, who was raising nine children (six were her sister's), said the logistics were "stunning … absolutely," but that, happily, her husband had learned to cook.

Michelle Obama has fit neatly within this tradition, where women are honest about difficulties they might face as working mothers. In Indiana last Thursday she said, "[Barack has] seen me worry that when I'm at work, I'm not spending enough time with the kids. And when I'm with the kids, I'm not spending enough time at work. Never feeling like I'm doing anything right—always feeling just a little guilty. Barack understands this." Cindy McCain has made no such admissions. When asked on "The View" last Friday how she managed public duties and motherhood, she answered: "The busier you are, the busier you are," adding that women "can do anything." This is the can-do Alaskan spirit with which Palin has infused the campaign. She is like an action figure: breast pump in hand, baby on her hip, dressed in a power suit and standing at a microphone, giving Democrats hell: Gals can do anything! (A Palin action figure has actually just been released, but it is more sexual fantasy—tartan miniskirt, cleavage prominent in a red bra —than a working-woman superhero.) Her working-mother feats—giving a speech after amniotic fluid had started to leak, marching back to work three days after giving birth, running a state while tending to a sleepless newborn—seem almost superhuman, and unreal. But somehow, unlike Ferraro, instead of making women feel inadequate, she inspires them. To many mothers she is empowering: she wields motherhood with pride, as something that doesn't diminish ability but enhances it—a sign of competence, indeed a qualification to speak on a national platform. The NEWSWEEK Poll shows few think she is properly qualified—nor do they know what her views are—but that her popularity abides regardless. For now.

"What really frightens me about Sarah Palin is, they're using her gender in a powerful way and a radical way," says Naomi Wolf, the feminist author who advised Al Gore in 2000. "She's pressing every single button that says 'working-class white woman'." Women candidates like Hillary Clinton had an "Ivy League gloss." Not Palin. "But it's a very superficial button when you look at the gamut of what women with small children can do as fronts of the wrong policy."

It is important to be cautious about generalizing about female voters. The voting record of women in the past few decades shows that they are more likely to vote for issues—particularly the economy and foreign policy—than gender. Female voters tend to be more concerned about war, education and health. And groups identified during campaigns—like single moms, soccer moms and security moms—are not always as influential as predicted. According to Karen Kaufmann—associate professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland and coauthor of "Unconventional Wisdom: Facts and Myths About American Voters"—despite the hype, "the 'soccer moms' and 'waitress moms' did not swing disproportionately more than the average American voter over the 1996-to-2004 period." She also found "that 'moms' (soccer, security or otherwise) were actually slightly less supportive of George W. Bush in 2004 than they had been in 2000—in contrast to the security-mom storyline."

There was little investigation of the female vote before the 1970s. Women were assumed to be naturally more conservative, and had slightly preferred Eisenhower to Stevenson, and Nixon to Kennedy. Political scientists began paying attention to the female vote in 1980, when 59.4 percent of eligible women cast a ballot for president, compared with 59.1 percent of men, a gap that has increased ever since. Together, they elected Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter. In 1984, while the Democrats had hoped to woo swing female voters by placing Ferraro on their ticket, the Republicans strategically targeted women on the basis of economic interests: their ads successfully targeted single working women, married working women and elderly women.