For advocates of improvements in conditions for women, the nomination of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin brings to mind the old adage, be careful what you wish for.

Electing the McCain-Palin ticket, while busting a barrier to women in top elective office in the U.S., would escalate the present disastrous direction in national policy in health care, retirement security, pay equity, and a
broad range of other issues that are of vital interest to achieving progress for women, and the social safety net for all Americans.

In some ways, Palin's candidacy is a reminder of how far we have to go in achieving equality in the political life of our nation.

The right to vote for women in the U.S. is still less than 90 years old. While today there are a record number of 91 women in the U.S. Congress and Senate -- that is still only 17 percent of those bodies. There are eight state governors, including Palin --  that's just 16 percent of the national total. Only one woman serves on the U.S. Supreme Court.

There's also good evidence of the role played by some pioneering women in national politics. Frances Perkins, to name one.

Perkins, who already had a distinguished career in New York campaigning for minimum wage and unemployment benefits, became an outspoken champion of labor rights and other progressive reforms after President Franklin Roosevelt appointed her Secretary of Labor, the nation's first woman cabinet member.

But Sarah Palin is no Frances Perkins.

Her record in Alaska offers cause enough for concern, such as the decision of Wasilla, Ak., during her tenure as mayor, to charge victims of sexual assault for evidence-gathering medical exams.

Her less than forthright statements about pork-barrel spending, use of her executive powers to pursue a personal vendetta against an ex-brother in law, and apparent interest in banning books in the public library hardly provide more reassurance.

Most important, however, is the path an administration in which she servedwould take.

Consider where a McCain-Palin administration would lead on health care.

At the heart of the McCain health care plan is the goal of moving people out of employer-paid health coverage to fend for themselves in the individual private insurance market place.

How he gets there is by taxing health benefits -- a clear incentive for healthier workers to give up their current coverage and shop for cheaper plans with high out-of-pocket costs.

Employers then get stuck covering just sicker, usually older employees, shredding the notion of a large group plan risk pool and sharply driving up their costs.

The likely outcome? The current erosion of employer coverage would become an avalanche. The Dallas Morning News, hardly a bastion of the "liberal" media elite the McCain camp loves to vilify, cites analysts warning it could "lead to the death of company-provided health plans."
McCain's other grandiose idea is to further deregulate a healthcare industry that is already barely regulated. For example, he wants to allow insurance companies to evade and undermine minimum requirements in some states on what insurers must cover, such as maternity care or cancer screenings.

What would a McCain-Palin administration mean for retirement security? McCain has  called Social Security "a disgrace," and advocates partial privatization by encouraging people to divert their Social Security payments to Wall Street speculators, undermining the financial foundation of our national retirement program.

Pay equity for women? McCain opposes two significant bills in Congress, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act. The Ledbetter bill is named for a woman who sued Goodyear Tire & Rubber for paying her less than male co-workers. She won a discrimination lawsuit. But the decision was overturned on a technicality by the U.S. Supreme Court, the same court to which the next president will likely name two or three new justices.

Does Palin hold different views than McCain? Her most noticeable record as governor on health care, for example, has been to rail against regulation, and push to repeal the state's certificate of need program which is intended to protect community medical centers from being financially undercut by more profitable businesses such as boutique clinics and high-end surgery centers.

Palin may provide gender balance in a McCain administration, but looks to be in full lockstep with a philosophical bent that has already put an enormous squeeze on the economic security and status of American women.

As a result of the devastating policies of the Bush years, incomes for female heads of household have fallen 3 percent this decade. Half of women are in jobs without retirement plans. Retired women are more likely to be poor than retired men. Women are one-third more likely to hold subprime mortgages and face the loss of their homes. And, women are losing jobs at a faster rate than men.

A McCain-Palin administration is likely to perpetuate that dismal record.  If that's an advance for women, count me out.