Senator Barack Obama: The GOP’s Greatest Fundraiser

The RNC has tried lots of things to get me to give a donation. I’ve always preferred to give to individual candidates and have been ticked off by the one of some of the frantic dispatches. I never thought I would give to the RNC (though I have supported the Idaho Republican Party). But Barack Obama has proven a far better fundraiser than anyone who writes ominous mail pieces at the RNC:

“You know, you can put lipstick on a pig,” Obama said, “but it’s still a pig.”

I guess this attack on Governor Palin is part of the post-partisan Obama era. Hope, Change, Light Bearer, all that jazz.

Good job, Senator. $10 is on its way to the RNC right now and I hope they kick your rear end back to Chicago.

UPDATE

DFO posted about this and most of the commenters agree that this was about Palin, though some feel it was smart or that it was about time.

Meanwhile Baseball Crank adds:

 Let me just put it this way, after thinking this through a little further. I’m frankly embarrassed to be arguing that Obama intended to call Palin a pig (although I think we can agree that if that was what he intended to do, it was…ungentlemanly of him, to put it mildly). But really, if I was on the other side of this one, I’d be at least equally embarrassed that my candidate was that big a…fool to go and say this, no matter what he meant, knowing full well the context – his own and his supporters’ hypersensitivity on matters of race, his ugly history with Hillary, the blowback that’s already gone down over attacks on Palin that were seen as sexist. I’d be throwing things at my TV screen. If we give Obama the benefit of the doubt here, he just comes off looking like that much bigger a fool.

Indeed, to my ears, it sounds like a statement delievered to reve up the Democratic base, but done with enough plausible deniability to stay out of trouble in the press, but if instead it wasn’t intentional…wow!

UPDATE 2

The lipstick thing may have gone overboard, particularly with the McCain webad (which was thankfully pulled by You Tube.) You can over play a gaffe and there’s a clear danger of doing that. Obama has been reeling, but this statement calling for the campaign to get back to the issues looked incredibly strong:

(Hat Tip: Huckleberries.)

If Obama was being intentional, he may have been trying to bait Republicans into going overboard. Governor Huckabee has urged a return to issues:

Let’s shift back to the issues. Barack Obama released an education proposal yesterday that has plenty of faults. Lets talk about it instead. Republicans have been arguing correctly for choice in our schools and adding accountability. Lets spend our time and energy focusing on what we stand for.  There is plenty to talk about.

Where is the discussion on the continuing rise of healthcare costs in the nation? These costs are crippling families and combined with the high cost of gasoline, making it almost possible for working class families to save, with many pushed further into debt as they struggle just to get by.

Republicans should be trumpeting our openness to drill, conserve and use alternative sources of energy.

Republicans should promote our focus on preventative care to help cut health care costs in the long term. We need to advocate policies that will encourage the private sector to seek innovative ways to bring down costs and improve the free market for health care services. We have to change a system that happily pays $30,000 for a diabetic to have his foot amputated, but won’t pay for the shoes that would save his foot.

Kathryn Jean Lopez warns overplaying the lipstick thing could be an overplay similar to some of the Republican attacks on Jim Webb towards the end of the campaign which Webb won.

The story’s shelf life seems destined to die out tonight, with a few interesting embers. First of all, as Warner Todd Huston suggested earlier, much of Obama’s comments proceeding the pig statement. (Hat Tip: Baseball Crank.)

And then Obama talked about this on Letterman:

LETTERMAN: Let me ask you a question here, have you ever actually put lipstick on pig?

OBAMA: The answer would be no. But I think it might be fun to try …. This is sorta silly season in politics. Not that there’s a non silly season but it gets sillier . It’s a common expression in at least illinois. I don’t know about in New York City. I don’t know what you put lipstick on here. (Silly cringe from Letterman. Laughter from audience) In Illinois, The expression connotes the idea that if you have a bad idea — in this case I was talking about McCain’s economic plans — calling them ‘change,’ calling them something different doesn’t make them better. Hence lipstick on a pig is still a pig.

He then added that Palin represented the lipstick in the picture, with McCain’s policies as the pig.

(Hat Tip: Hugh Hewitt)

That’s so much better…er, right? McCain’s best angle here is not going after sexism but pointing out the shallowness of Obama’s new tone language and they did that in a TV ad:

The Obama camp denies everything. However, McCain is accurate on what newspaper have reported with one of those sources being the usually reliable John Fund.