Romney’s jab at the Augusta National Golf Club for its all-male membership was just as gratuitous as Obama’s similar comment:

If I were a member and if I could run Augusta, which isn’t likely to happen . . . of course I’d have women in Augusta, sure.

“Of course?” Is there no single American organization left that can be allowed to be all-male? Women have pushed their way into virtually every other institution, how about they now show the grace of the victor and call off the crusade. Granted, a golf club has less transcendent cultural value than the Vienna Philharmonic, say, which was the perennial target of NOW protests for years when it played in the U.S. until it scrapped its century-long tradition of male membership, but the principle of respect for tradition and the right of private association applies no less to Augusta.

Romney is at his best when speaking from the heart about the power and beauty of the free market. He won me over in a debate with McCain during the last election, when he shot down McCain’s demagoguery about the evil profits of drug companies with the simple observation that pharmaceutical makers were bringing valuable products to market at considerable financial risk to themselves and should be rewarded for their efforts. If women’s votes can’t be won with such core truths, they’re not worth it. Romney should stick to a gender-blind defense of free enterprise, and leave the feminist fever dreams to the Democrats.