The reports that Barack Obama said John McCain and Sarah Palin are “just calling the same thing something different. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig” demonstrate the challenges Obama and Joe Biden face when criticizing Palin.
After all, it was Palin who famously ad-libbed in her speech accepting the vice presidential nomination, “You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.”
If anything, Palin’s speech should have taken the word “lipstick” out of the Democrats’ lexicon. Instead, Obama’s comment will put the campaign on the defensive and open itself up to charges of sexism. Again.
The Obama campaign may try to say Palin is trying to play the victim card and will most likely find a clip of McCain using a similar phrase.
This misses the point. When Obama makes attacks like this, he stops becoming a “different” candidate or an anointed messenger of change. These kinds of attacks will remind many voters of the same old politics of the past.
The best thing the Obama campaign can do is apologize, quickly, and move on.