LIPSTICK ANYONE?????

I was humored greatly on my drive into work this morning as I listened to one of the local talk radio stations discussing the 'lipstick' comment that Barrack Obama made yesterday and how the McCain campaign has reacted to it. Aside from being humored, I also quickly became aggravated once again at the antics of this political campaign season.

While it has been assumed that Obama had an underlying motive behind making the statement 'lipstick on a pig', the reality is no one but Obama, himself knew what he meant behind the comment. Had he uttered the phrase a mere few days prior to the now famous speech made by Sarah Palin at the Republican National Convention, no one would have given his analogy any thought, especially since John McCain, himself, used the same phrase less than 6 months before.

This was indeed an opportunity for the McCain campaign to jump all over Obama's misstep in words and relate it to Palin's off the cuff joke during the RNC. What we must realize is those in the campaign who have taken the liberty of bringing to the world's attention, are speaking on behalf of the McCain campaign itself. Nowhere has it been reported that John McCain or Sarah Palin are offended and I highly doubt they have spent much time putting a whole lot of thought into Obama and what he is or isn't saying on the campaign trail. They pay people to create the chatter that evolves just as much as Obama does for his respective campaign.

Regardless of whether Obama meant what he said as an belittlement of Sarah Palin or not, remains to be seen. It was a bold choice of words and the timing of stating them could not have been worse. Will this hurt him? I think it could. Before the RNC and the arrival of Sarah Palin to the McCain campaign, I doubt anyone would have cared one way or the other what was said or not said about McCain. Obama was the man to beat and he undoubtedly had the momentum. The tides have changed somewhat in McCain's favor. There are those diehard Republicans who would have voted for Obama before Sarah Palin came along because they disliked John McCain that much. The difference in then and now is they happen to like Palin more and that is enough reason in itself to bring them together to now come to McCain's defense no matter how petty & enough to vote for him in November. Obama can't afford to say anything now that could be a bad reflection of him that bounces off of McCain in a positive way.

Even though we, as Americans strive to make our decision for who we will vote for come Election Day based on the issues of our country alone, the waters tend to become muddied to distract and disillusion us from the task at hand when silly, gregarious things such as this crop up. It's unnecessary and unfortunate that our country as a whole has to be subjected to this to take our focus off of where it truly needs to be. Maybe moving forward when these type stories are presented to us, we need to stop and pull back and try to glean something from the outrageousness of the story itself. So in this instance, it does make one think...if only choosing the man best suited for the job as President of the United States were as easy as choosing a shade of lipstick.