NOTHING Else to talk about but Lipstick on a Pig?

By l.t. Dravis

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL – Tuesday, September 9, 2008 – Good morning, Senator McCain. With less than sixty days until the election, your campaign has evidently run out of things to say about how your economic policies would be better for America than the policies offered by Senator Obama.

Why do I say that?

Because when Senator Obama commented on your economic policies on the campaign trail yesterday, your campaign didn’t respond by telling voters how your policies will create more jobs, stabilize credit and mortgage markets, help more Americans afford college for their children, encourage new investment in U.S. business, increase savings rates for working folks, revamp our crumbling infrastructure, or eliminate our reliance on foreign oil.

Your campaign chose instead to attack Senator Obama with a distraction wrapped in hypocrisy.

Senator Obama was commenting on how your economic policies are no different from the failed Republican policies that brought the nation to its economic knees when he said, “You can put lipstick on a pig . . . it’s still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called ‘change’. It’s still going to stink after eight years.”

Okay.

Obama expressed his opinion about your economic plan.

So what?

No big deal . . . right?

Isn’t that what political opponents do?

They point out what they don’t like about the other candidate’s platform, policies, and ideas.

Isn’t that what you do?

We understand that your campaign would disagree with Senator Obama’s characterization of your economic policies, but why wouldn’t it simply respond by telling us why your economic policies are better than his economic policies?

Your campaign didn’t even bother to disagree with Senator Obama.

Rather, it decided the best thing to do was to organize a telephone conference call with the media to demand an immediate apology from Senator Obama for calling Vice-Presidential nominee Palin a “pig”.

Huh?

Whoa . . . what could possibly have caused your campaign to conclude Obama had called your running mate a ‘pig’?

Obama wasn’t even talking about Governor Palin when he made the comment . . . he was talking about your economic policies.

So, how do you make the connection to Sarah Palin?

By the way, where was your apology after your comments last year on the health care proposal put forth by then First Lady Hillary Clinton in the 1990s? Do you remember how you characterized her health care proposals? In case you’ve forgotten, permit me to remind you that you said, “I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”

Don’t remember hearing that you apologized to Hillary . . . in fact, I don’t remember hearing anyone even ask you to apologize.

In any event, while you’ve recently changed to become the ‘change’ guy, I presume you’re still representing yourself as the ‘straight talk’ guy . . . right?

Okay, so let’s talk straight.

If your economic policies provided viable solutions for the serious challenges that face this nation after eight years under Bush/Cheney and a primarily Republican Congress, your campaign wouldn’t waste America’s time and your money with an ad whining about your supposed indignation over an inane comment about ‘lipstick on a pig’.

Because the ‘experience’ thing didn’t catch on with voters, you’re now trying to sell yourself as the ‘change’ candidate, but after two terms in the house and three terms in the Senate, your record tells us everything we need to know about your interest and ability to ‘change’ anything.

And, when we look closely at the economic policies you’re currently running on, we recognize them as essentially Bush/Cheney policies wrapped in a different logo.

So, it isn’t difficult to understand that your campaign would feel pressured to focus on distractions as opposed to ideas and solutions.

What else can your campaign manager, Rick Davis, and his crew do?

Still, I’m surprised that you would be so obvious about it.

It doesn’t make sense that a campaign so desperate to take away the Obama change mantle would at the same time so obviously play ‘politics as usual’ with phony indignation over nothing.

What if the voting public sees through this charade and comes to recognize what you’re up to?

What if voters begin to see you, your running mate, and your campaign as no better and no different from the Bush/Cheney campaign that smeared you out of the 2000 Republican Primary race with distractions, distortions, and lies?

What if?

Evidently you believe that you and Rick Davis can do to Obama what George W. Bush and Karl Rove did to you eight years ago.

That’s too bad, Senator McCain.

Some of us thought you were better than that.

Guess we were wrong.

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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