Pigs in Lipstick, and the Two Faces of McCain

I can't even begin to say how disappointed I am in the way McCain is running his campaign. I actually admire the man, and I thought he was going to spend time discussing issues. Instead he's taken the usual 'Republican Low Road.' I'm sure you've all heard the story already, but this article is quite amusing in a sad head-shaking sort of way: Lipstick On A Pig

I am sorry but that made me laugh out loud! How typical of a campaign, (I won't blame it all on any one person) pick a few words your opponent utters and try to make a big deal about it - and then, have someone in our ever vigilant media point out that the campaign had used the same few words. Caught-cha! If it were not so sad, it would be really really funny!!

It does seem that we are at a low point here, and gads there are weeks to go yet. I don't know if I will be able to stand it and I like politics.

I do too, maggie, but right now I'm very disheartened. I should probably just STOP watching the news and reading articles online, but I can't seem to help myself.

I hope this incident serves as a wake-up call to ALL of them, but I somehow doubt it will.

So, I'd be very inclined to give Obama the benefit of the doubt on this. For starters, if he meant it the way the McCain people think, it'd be a gaffe. I can't believe he did it intentionally. At worst, he had lipstick on the brain, as it were. And I don't the McCain team should presume bad intent so quickly.

But I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to raise your eyebrow a little over the line. Search around on the blogosphere a bit pre-the comment and you'll see it being used by anti-Republican bloggers, with the reference to Palin quite explicit. Prior to being uttered by Obama, it was a pretty obvious, if sophomoric, come-back to her line. Given that Palin and her line is topic-A right now, I don't think it's some crazy Republican plot to be surprised at the use here.

So, I don't blame Obama, but can we agree it was a little off?

I agree that his timing was off. If he'd said the exact same thing a week or so ago no one would have blinked an eye. Even Mike Huckabee has come to Obama's defense on this one:

But Mike Huckabee, a McCain opponent in the primaries, said he did not believe Obama was calling Palin a pig. "It's an old expression, and I'm going to have to cut Obama some slack on that one," Huckabee told Fox News.

The Obama camp has been just as guilty of this crap in the past, for example when they tried to paint Bill Clinton as a racist. I wish ALL of them would call a ceasefire on the petty BS and stick to real matters at hand. I don't understand why they can't.

Wouldn't it be sweet if they both saw the light during that 9/11 ceremony tomorrow?

This election is historic! The decisions the President and Congress will be called upon to make after 2009 are huge in their potential impacts for good or bad. I think the people who are campaigning are "pulling out all the stops". Unfortunately, the research done in Political Science depts. in universities all over seem to indicate the voters respond to the low brow approaches. The voters seem to vote based on "identiy politics"; sound bites; humor; and mean spirited ugly stuff.

I have not been in the academic environment for a long time so I am talking about what I have heard and what seems to be operative.

Just because I understand why the campaigns may go to the "dark side" does not keep me from hoping they will cease.

The Republics don't need issues, they just get in the way. they have a larger mission, to save America from the Democrats. Issues are distractions. Hypocrisy has no meaning. The truth is irrelevant and indeed is to be stonewalled if necessary.

Issues are for losers.

The *stated* Republican strategy is to make this a fight over personalities. McCain's staff has said they want a fight over personalities and not the issues.

While the lipstick on a pig comment may seem off, it is, indeed a well known and well heeled colloquialism and I don't really fault Obama for falling back on it. Especially with Palin's lies about being for change regarding pork barrel spending. Maybe it was percolating in the subconscious due to the crazy amount of attention being given to pork/earmarks, but I really don't believe it was meant to be a vicious attack.

As far as I know, nobody has even brought up the hypocrisy of the Republicans repeatedly using the phrase "cult of personality" to refer to Obama's popularity. They've used it to denigrate Obama's followers as shallow, mindless sheep, yet this is exactly how McCain's people state they want to run their campaign rather than focus on issues. I also have yet to hear anybody on the Democratic side bring up the similarities with Ronald Reagan's popularity as a cultish endeavor.

Both sides are pretty much full of it, as far as I'm concerned.