Is Teresa Heinz Kerry a figure of historic proportions, even though her husband lost? I have a theory: Teresa cost her husband the votes of women, maybe not enough to have a major impact on the outcome of the election, but enough to make Teresa the first vote-losing first lady wanabe in history.


Teresa had few unexpressed thoughts and many moments that were harmful to her husband’s aspirations. But, in my opinion, Teresa’s definitive moment, the utterance that may have turned off more women voters than anything else the wacky heiress did, was her condescending comment that Laura Bush had never had a job.


Teresa made it all worse, of course, when she apologized by saying that she’d forgotten that Mrs. Bush had been a librarian, utterly disregarding the most important job the first lady has ever had: mother.


Mrs. HK let the cat out of the bag: A stay-at-home mother is nobody to Mrs. HK. She is not alone in feeling this way. There’s a terrific piece today in National Review by Myrna Blyth that’s based mainly on an email from a stay-at-home mother, Elizabeth Oliver, who’s wiser and smarter than Teresa, Geraldine Ferraro, and Whoopi Goldberg rolled into one.


“I am happy to report that Elizabeth and millions of women like her have minds of their own — and darn good ones,” writes Blyth. “As she says, she is not influenced by media or campaign spin. She ignores Kate and Diane and doesn’t even buy Oprah’s showy enthusiasm for stay-at-home moms. The bombardment of millions of dollars of political advertising tends to annoy her more than affect her. As she writes: ’We’re pretty bright and we can figure things out for ourselves.’ That’s why she has felt so good since the election. ’There’s a definite feeling of reaffirmation, that, darn it, we knew what was right and we said it loud and clear.’”