Since the beginning of the year, John McCain seems to have settled on a consistent set of closing remarks for his most important speeches. Whenever he talks about America, he refers to his favorite nation with the feminine pronoun, "her." But in three out of the last four primary and caucus victory speeches he's delivered, McCain has stepped up his invocation of Lady Liberty. Here are the last few lines of McCain's New Hampshire victory speech:

So, my friends, we celebrate one victory tonight and leave for Michigan tomorrow to win another. But let us remember that our purpose is not ours alone; our success is not an end in itself. America is our cause -- yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Her greatness is our hope; her strength is our protection; her ideals our greatest treasure; her prosperity the promise we keep to our children; her goodness the hope of mankind. That is the cause of our campaign and the platform of my party, and I will stay true to it so help me God.

This is hardly the first time anyone invoked America in the same way they might refer to a great ship, and it isn't even the first time for McCain. But the use of the word "her" seems to have taken on a greater frequency and urgency in his oratory since January. I tend to think that this subtle change in McCain’s language is calculated to establish two things.

First, using "her" shows McCain as a traditionalist. He talks about great causes the way a founding father might have spoken. And second, McCain establishes himself as a paternal figure: a man who has the power to protect, honor and provide for a woman -- when that woman just happens to be the USA. It's a subtle way to imply that a woman would not be able to do the same job as president as a man. Certainly, it would sound strange for Hillary Clinton to refer to America as "her." In this way, McCain can covertly raise the gender issue without ever sounding overtly sexist.