I’m actually not a fan of the term “mansplaining,” but it works here in a sort of hoist with his own petard sense. One Republican candidate has grown tired of the tiresome war on women demagoguery from Democrats, especially the one in which the former Michigan secretary of state is competing — the US Senate seat vacated by Carl Levin’s retirement. In this case, the irony is especially striking, since the Democrat is a male, while the Republican is Terri Lynn Land. Her new ad, “Really?”, mocks Rep. Gary Peters — mainly by silence:

Matt Lewis notes that the ad comes out just as the SEIU decided to use a war on women attack by claiming that Land’s opposition to ObamaCare means women will fall prey to the Koch Brothers, or something:

George Will predicted this a couple of weeks ago, and predicted Land would triumph on the sheer mansplaining contradiction:

In some recent polls she has a small lead in what may remain a close race. She has less to fear than Republicans used to have from Detroit’s Democratic vote. The city’s population has plunged from 1.8 million to 700,000, and today’s Democratic mayor wields a much diminished political machine while an emergency manager is in place. Only 3 percent of Michiganders live in the Upper Peninsula, but in a close race they could provide the margin of victory for Land. The UP’s conservatism can be distilled in six words: “I’m up here. Don’t bother me.”

Land represents Republicans’ most effective response to Democrats’ ­hyperventilating about the “war on women” — female candidates. It will be amusing to see such rhetoric tried in Iowa, where Joni Ernst, a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard who served in Iraq, is seeking the Republican Senate nomination. She says in an ad: “I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm. So when I get to Washington, I’ll know how to cut pork.” She rides a Harley and in a recent Des Moines Register column she said, “Those who know me well know that I carry a black purse everywhere I go. What many people don’t know is what’s inside: a Smith and Wesson 9 mm and my concealed carry permit.”

Many Democrats seem to prefer the sensibility of Fluke, a professional victim and virtuoso whiner. Michigan’s electorate, which has produced today’s Republican governor andlegislature, may be ready, by electing a Republican senator for the third time in 42 years, to show what they think of “war on women” hysterics as a substitute for thought.

We can only hope.