Bungle in the lipstick jungle?
Updated on 10 September 2008
Lipstick, pigs and pitbulls. Felicity Spector blogs on the latest hot topic coming out of the US elections...
It's a lipstick jungle out there - at least, thanks to Barack Obama's frankly misjudged remark in yesterday's stump speech: 'You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.'
Now, hands up who thought he was referring to Sarah Palin (she of the lipstick-pitbull tendency)? Obama pushed on regardless: 'You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called 'change', it's still gonna stink after eight years.' Perhaps that was an allusion to John 'stinking old fish' McCain.
But never mind what Obama really meant - the Republicans are exploiting it for all they're worth. There's an internet video of their instant response ad, and a statement from official McCain surrogate Jane Swift: 'It's disgraceful. Senator Obama owes Governor Palin an apology. This is just the latest in a series of comments that females like me will find offensive...
There's only one woman in the race. It's hard to think this was directed at anybody other than Governor Palin.'
Obama himself hit back, calling it 'the same game that has made people sick and tired of politics in this country. They seize on an innocent remark, throw out an outrageous ad because they know it is catnip for the media. It would be funny except for the news media decided that was the lead story yesterday. The McCain campaign would much rather have a story about phoney and foolish diversion then about the future.'
Whatever. All this is undoubtedly hyping up the sexism allegations - as if Obama didn't have enough problems with women voters already.
For Palin herself, however much she is pilloried as a moose-shooting redneck, has injected the energy and the excitement that the Republicans so badly needed.
Volunteers have flooded in, donations have leapt, thousands are turning up for rallies - and it's turned into the GOP's best week for four years. They're already calling it 'Palin power'. And all this before the governor gives her first TV interview to ABC's Charlie Gibson, and waves her eldest son off on his way to Iraq on, of all days, September 11th.
There's no panic, according to team Obama. But other Democrats like New Jersey congressman Bill Pascrell, are getting worried, warning that 'the novelty has worn off'.
And just look at the polls. The latest Wall St Journal/NBC poll gives McCain a 52-41 lead over Obama among white women. Hillary Clinton's former strategist tells Time that female voters are just plain 'conflicted' about Obama. And there's not much time to make things right. Early voting in more than 30 states means that in some cases there's less than three weeks to go before polling begins.
And all this reveals a worrying tenor to the home stretch of the election campaign: it's negative, it's personal, and the allegations of lies, slander and manipulation are coming thick and fast. Palin power might be working - so far - for the Republicans. Obama power has yet to rediscover its voice.
