Sep 12, 2008 | 7:40 AM
Category:
Political
SHADES OF LIPSTICK TINT A RACE
This Political Week has been quite a week for lipstick. Of course by now, everyone knows Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska introduced herself to the Republican Convention as John McCain’s running mate by answering her own question: What’s the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom, which is how she typically describes herself? Of course, you know her answer: “Lipstick.” It instantly became the big line of the GOP confab.
The sound bite has been re-run and re-run. This week, in Pennsylvania, Senator Barack Obama made his own lipstick allusion, drawing on a very old comparison as he derided McCain and the Republicans for now embracing the “change” mantle that’s become a cornerstone of his own campaign. Obama: “John McCain says he’s about change, too – except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics. That’s not change. That’s just calling the same thing something different. You can put lipstick on a pig – it’s still a pig.”
Now Obama didn’t mention Palin until later in his speech… but the lipstick and pig reference was enough to get a big howl from the McCain troops who called it “disgraceful” and “sexist” and demanded an apology.
As my Fox 11 News colleague Jeff Michael noted on the air the other night: “Obama: Note to self… lipstick smears easily.”
But the Obama campaign was ready to fire back… offering up a year-ago quote by McCain in which he was criticizing a health care plan by Senator Hillary Clinton. Said McCain then: “I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”
And before things quieted down for the Day of Remembrance yesterday (Thursday), Obama was accusing McCain’s campaign of using "lies and phony outrage and Swift-boat politics.” In turn, conservative commentators on radio and TV were treating the lipstick and pig issue as the potential breaking point for Obama’s campaign.
Oink!
For me, it’s far too little, too early to be a long range turning point.
The same can be said for the “bridge to nowhere” federal dollar earmark – the one Sarah Palin was for before she was against. The one that Palin says over and over again that she told Congress “thanks but no thanks.” The facts show she actually didn’t tell Congress anything about the bridge. It’s a bit of an issue for the Democrats but it won’t have long mileage traction.
OBAMA NOW PLAYING DEFENSE AGAINST MCCAIN
Away from bridges and pigs now… Obama did find himself in a position this week he hasn't been in during many long months of campaigning — on defense against Republican rival John McCain.
With just over seven weeks left in the race, the candidates are now running even in most polls, money and, it seems, even rank-and-file enthusiasm — all fronts where Obama had led for months.
At the same time, Iraq, the issue that anti-war Obama successfully used during the primaries, has faded to the background. The economy is voters' primary concern but, on that topic, too, McCain has made gains to start leveling the playing field.
All this, despite an election season in which the sour mood of voters and their thirst for a new direction are just two of several advantages for Democrats trying to recapture the White House after eight years of Republican rule.
With voters craving change and Obama offering it, McCain has started pushing hard to reclaim the reformer mantle he owned eight years ago. That leaves Obama, the change candidate of the primaries, spending much of his time explaining to voters why McCain and Palin don't deserve the label.
On Monday in Detroit, Obama declared: "How do they have the nerve to say it? When you've been supporting this current president, your party has been in power, and you're not offering anything new, how is it that you're serious about change? You're not. It's empty words.”
That was a lead-up to the “lipstick on a pig” line the next day. But Democrats clearly have to be worried that the Republican ticket is gaining, and in no small part because of the addition of the first-term Alaska governor who is the first Republican woman on a presidential ticket.
A CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll finds nearly six in 10 people view Palin favorably, and about a third say she was an excellent choice as the GOP's vice presidential nominee. That's a bit higher than said the same about Obama's vice presidential choice, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware.
THE FIRST PALIN INTERVIEW
Toward the end of the week, Palin did her first one-on-one media interview since accepting the nomination. In talking to ABC’s Charlie Gibson, she defended her qualifications but struggled with foreign policy. For one thing, she couldn’t describe President Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against threatening nations and admitted she's never met a foreign head of state.
She was very well prepped. And when she met a Gibson question she didn’t like, she handled it by shifting topics and answering a hypothetical question she would have preferred (a ploy most politicians attempt, with varying degrees of success).
Palin told Gibson "I'm ready" to be president if called upon. However, she managed to keep sidestepping his queries about whether she really had the national security credentials needed to be commander in chief.
Despite some stumbles and less than knowledgeable answers, Palin and her new boss can – overall -- afford to be very happy with September, at least so far.
RON PAUL: NOT ENDORSING FELLOW REPUBLICAN
And this week also saw Republican, but libertarian-leaning Texas Congressman Ron Paul resurface. You’ll recall Paul attracted a devoted following in the GOP primaries, but when that season ended he never endorsed his party’s standard bearer. He now says he’s been courted by a GOP big… who tried to convince him now is the time to publically support McCain. Paul refused.
Interestingly, Paul said the request had came from Phil Gramm, the former McCain adviser and ex-senator whom the campaign jettisoned after he said
the country was a "nation of whiners" about the economy. It was Paul who Gramm defeated Republican primary for the Senate in 1984.
Paul says Gramm’s prime sales point was that McCain “would do less harm than the other candidate." Now that is wimpy.
Certainly Gramm would have preferred that remark to remain private. But it didn’t, with Paul revealing the conversation during a news conference with three third-party candidates: independent Ralph Nader; former Georgia Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party candidate; and Chuck Baldwin, the
Constitution Party candidate.
Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate, was invited but said at his own news conference later that he declined because Paul didn't endorse one candidate.
Indeed he didn’t. Paul said voters should consider all the third party choices… but didn’t back any single one of them.
Paul has called the presidential elections a charade and said voters are faced with the "lesser of two evils."
Think he’s right?
