Be careful what you wish for.

That’s the lesson to women from the Republican National Convention.

No, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska is not what we wanted. Despite her stature as an elected state executive, her positions are all wrong for a woman who is supposed to attract women voters who liked Hillary Clinton – and to represent their views about life’s issues on a major-party ticket.

GOP presidential nominee John McCain doesn’t get it, I guess.

Women who supported Clinton to be the first female president wanted someone who was qualified and simpatico with their concerns. Palin, who is McCain’s vice-presidential choice, doesn’t fill that need.

Take her stance on reproductive rights, for instance. She is even more opposed to women having the right to make their own decisions about an abortion than McCain is. He supports abortion in cases of rape and incest. She favors it only to save the mother’s life.

She’s against comprehensive sex education; she’s opposed to stem-cell research. She’s just about everything a feminist wouldn’t want.

Her candidacy also will be tainted in many women’s minds by the hypocrisy of the Republican Party.

For decades, Republicans have been the driving political force behind the “guilt trip.”

Women, their party said, should be home taking care of the kids, not pursuing careers or running for office.

It is difficult to believe the convention enthusiasm that greeted Palin, an obviously working mother of five, is only a few years from the awful show the GOP put on at its 1992 convention, where working women were repeatedly bashed.

In 1992, the primary target was Hillary Clinton because she was the wife of the Democratic nominee, Bill Clinton. But the message about working women went out to everyone who watched.

Starting with GOP Chairman Rich Bond’s insults that Clinton was anti-family because she had a career, Republicans trotted out their stay-at-home moms and made a big deal about how their women had the “right values.”

One was Marilyn Quayle, wife of GOP vice-presidential choice Dan Quayle. Like Clinton, this wife was a lawyer but she gave up her career to raise her children.

Many women watching knew that the choice was just not that simple. The women’s vote that year put Bill Clinton in the White House.

Generations of women have agonized over work vs. family decisions.

Republican opposition to child-care funding and pay equity have made it more difficult for those who choose work, particularly single moms and low-income women.

Michelle Obama came through Kansas City a few weeks ago with the message of how husband Barack Obama will make things better for working women. Government policies that help them to work – universal health care, paid family leave, college aid – are necessary, she said.

Now comes Palin, and suddenly the Republicans have a new message?

They emphasize her five children, her “experience” in two years at the head of Alaska’s government, and her ability to “do it all.”

Should we take the warm reception to this superwoman as a sign that the Republican Party is now shifting its historic stance against working mothers and is from now on going to be helping women to balance work and family? Don’t bet on it.

Don’t look for Republican priorities to change, even with a vice presidential candidate who likes to hunt and can dress-out a moose with the best of them. And you can bet if McCain fails, it will be blamed on her.

Laura Scott is assistant editorial page editor at the Kansas City Star. E-mail: [email protected].