To say I'm proud to be a liberal is a little like saying I'm proud to have teeth.

Both are essential parts of who I am, but I tend to take them for granted.

It's not that I mindlessly trot through life without giving them a thought. Our teeth, after all, need daily tending and regular checkups, and so do our values. Neglect is corrosive. But they're also such a part of us that we count on them to work even when we're not thinking about them.

As the momentum of the presidential election surges, so do partisan attacks from both sides. Lately, my inbox has filled rapidly whenever I have written about race or Sarah Palin, and attacks predictably take aim at my appearance and my politics. Occasionally, someone creatively combines the two by calling me a liberal who's long in the tooth.

Clever.

Now, no woman enjoys being insulted for the face God gave her, but I also understand that this sort of discourse comes with the territory. Sometimes, people are funny when they don't mean to be. Lately, the Birkenstock line keeps popping up — as in, "You probably wear Birkenstocks, too." Pretty silly. Have you ever worn a pair of those things? Lighter than air, folks.

Calling me a liberal and thinking that's an insult indicates a real misunderstanding of what makes my heart go pitter-pat. Every time someone says, "You're nothing but a liberal," I want to say, "Why, thank you."

Like so many Americans who came from less than idyllic beginnings, being a liberal is, for me, an act of gratitude for who and what made me possible. My whole life is a product of this country's faith and generosity.

I am reminded of a conversation a few years ago with an editor who increasingly was frustrated with my topics and scolded me for failing to understand who I am.

"You are not the working class," he said, waving his finger at me. "You are an intellectual."

I shrugged my shoulders and informed him that if it's true that I'm an intellectual — and there are plenty who would make the contrary argument — then I'm an intellectual from the working class.

"We have smart people, too," I said.

The only thing that divides so many Americans is not ability, but opportunity. And when it comes to big chances, no one has benefited more than people like me. We were launched from the blue-collar world with little help beyond big dreams, low-interest college loans and a family legacy of wearing out someone else's low expectations. For so many of us, that was help enough.

Gloria Steinem was right: The personal is political. I can list all kinds of reasons for embracing the liberal agenda, starting with the civil rights movement. But if I am honest, I have to admit that my political values began at the cradle, and you can't get more personal than that.

I am a liberal because my father's union wages and benefits kept his family out of poverty and me in health care after I was diagnosed with severe asthma.

I am a liberal because Medicare kept my grandmother alive long after she was diagnosed with a disease that eventually would kill her.

I am a liberal because of laws that insist women like me get equal pay for jobs done equally well.

How can I turn my back on all of that? It just wouldn't be right to finally reach my little patch of the mountaintop and then immediately surround myself with a wall to keep everyone else out. "I got mine; you folks are on your own" just doesn't cut it where I come from.

Besides, I love this country. How could I do this for a living and not love America? I'm full of opinions and paid to publicize them, and I don't spend a second worrying that the government will throw me into prison for doing so. In this country, you can say what you want and live to tell the tale. What a liberal notion.

So if I think about it, I'd have to say that yes, I'm proud to be a liberal.

The teeth are good, too.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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