Timmer’s upset at the media attacks on Gov. Palin. So am I.

As a fairly strong, successful woman, I took offense every time Hillary played the victim card during the primaries (”you’re picking on me because I’m a woman”). Either you’re strong enough to run this country, or you’re not. The presidency is not a place for thin-skinned victim-mongers.

Sarah Palin got to where she is without playing the victim card, so far as I can tell. And I respect that.

I’m not a politician (nor do I want to be), but I am my own person, who got where I am without playing any victim cards. The most common phrase I heard when I was growing up was “girls don’t do that.” Girls don’t play drums (pre-Karen Carpenter). Girls don’t work on cars. Girls don’t drive tractors. Girls don’t take shop class. Girls don’t take vocational agriculture, but we have a very nice home-ec program if you’d like, or maybe the horticulture class? So I don’t play drums, but I learned how to change my own oil, I helped my dad bush-hog the fields, I took wood-shop in summer school. Today, I can build or repair computers, recently built my own rain-barrels, swapped out regular light-switches for motion-sensor light switches, swapped out ceiling light fixtures, and all kinds of other things that “girls don’t do,” according to my early childhood.

My grandfathers were coal-miners. One was also a share-cropper. I have no idea about their fathers/grandfathers — none of us know anything much about our families before the most recent generations. Although I do know that on my mother’s side, the family was split during the civil war – one brother wore blue, one wore gray.

Neither of my parents graduated high school. Mom dropped out after her junior year so she could get a job and help out at home. Dad dropped out because he didn’t like school. My dad joined the Marines at 17 so he could stay out of the coal mines. Mom got married at 18 to get away from home. Her first husband thought she’d make a good punching bag, so she left him. She and my dad were together for 2 years before they married, and she was 3-4 months pregnant with my brother when she married my dad (in 1954). She hid that for 20 years because she was so embarrassed about it. When she died in 2003, they’d been married 50 years.

I’m the youngest in my immediate family, and I was the first one to go to college. When I wanted a college degree, I found financial aid, and joined the National Guard (dad was handicapped and folks had no money). When I needed to pay off college loans, and figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, I joined the Air Force. When that stopped being fun, I got out and figured out what I really wanted to be when I grew up, and started pursuing those types of jobs.

I survived two years of unemployment while living alone, 500 miles away from my family and 1000 miles away from my best support system.

I have spent the last 25 years working in career fields that are mostly male-dominated (military, IT), and have never needed to play any kind of victim card, or gender card. All I’ve needed to do is learn my job, do my job, and be a grown up. I learned early on that whining at work was NOT the way to get ahead.

Gov. Palin is a grown up. She has my vote. And yeah, like Timmer says, they’re not just attacking Gov. Palin. They’re attacking me. I’m not a politician, or a former beauty queen, or a wife & mother, but I’m an independent, strong-minded, successful, conservative woman, who comes from “fly-over country.” Like Gov. Palin. Like Sgt Mom. Like my best friend in Texas, and most of the women that I know.

The media has no idea who we are. They may never know. But we know who we are. And we know who Sarah Palin is. She’s one of us.