Notes On The Candidates

[poliphilo]

They say old soldiers make peace-loving politicians because they know first-hand how horrible war is, but this doesn't seem to apply to McCain, who has already- and he's not even in the White House yet- threatened to go to war with Russia.  Maybe this is because his military service involved flying above battlefields, not slogging accross them.

I'll say this for Palin: she hasn't pulled strings or called in favours to keep her son out of her holy war.

As for Obama, he's supposed to be hugely intelligent, right? So why in the world did he make that crack about the pig and the lipstick when he- or his minders- should have known that the GOP attack dogs would be all over it? The more I see and hear of him, the flimsier he seems to be.

Comments

[unbleachedbrun.livejournal.com]

The lipstick on a pig phrase is a common American idiom, and it has been used previously both by Obama and even by McCain (McCain used it in reference to Hillary Clinton's health care ideas). Having McCain operatives try to associate the comment with Palin's pit bull/hockey mom lipstick joke or even her personally was, I thought, quite disingenuous. I smell desperation.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that by using that particular phrase at that particular time he threw his enemies a bone. A really astute politician would have found some other well-worn phrase to employ.

[internet-sampo.livejournal.com]

I've noticed Obama seemed fatigued at times. I've never seen the lipstick comment in full context, so I don't know.

But, lipstick on a pig, is so common it's almost as if McCain/Palin decided that whatever Obama said that day that they would twist it and use it against him.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

This is only tangentially related, but why do contemporary politicians only ever talk in cliches?

[internet-sampo.livejournal.com]

While one of your previous posters reminded me that that phrase is politico-talk, I also think that this cliche also has a country-flavor (farm yard animal) and could be strategically used to make Obama appear less intellectual elite than he is (remember that being anti-intellectual elite is one thing that got Nixon elected).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

If that was the intention, it backfired. Good ol' boy isn't in Obama's repertoire.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Regardless, do people not see that whatever Obama does or does not do will be attacked by the Republicans? Four years ago they were all over John Kerry because he was too "weak" to fight them on their own (dirty) terms. He ran a clean campaign - and lost. This year, Obama fights back and now they are all over HIM.
If this was not such a crucial election, I would just pass on voting. A plague on ALL their houses! But I will cast my vote against McCain/Palin.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

He didn't throw his enemies a bone; he threw them an entire haunch!

I watched the clip on YouTube. Obama paused after "you can put lipstick on a pig," and waited while the audience let out a number of appreciative hoots and cat-calls that suggested that they, at least, linked it with Palin. He then went on to say [I paraphrase, may not be perfect] "and you can wrap up an old fish with newspapers and call it change but it's still going to smell."

It was clear that his audience there took this as references to Palin and McCain, which helped with the perception that he did it in order to get that effect. I think that at the very least, Obama had a tin ear for how those particular figures of speech would be received.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I noticed that pause.

I wondered whether it was a "whoops, now I've said it" moment- and he was wishing he could backtrack and start again.