In a great article on  the Human Events site, A.W.R Hawkins quotes Barack Obama as saying “We're not going to be bullied…I don’t believe in coming in second.”  This is a true statement.  When making his first run for office in the Illinois state legislature in 1996, he gave his typical Yes-You-Can-Change-Hope speech, and wrote about it in The Audacity Of Hope:  "It was a pretty convincing speech, I thought," he writes, and while he wasn't sure that everyone liked it he goes on: "Enough of them appreciated my earnestness and youthful swagger that I made it to the Illinois legislature."¹  Being someone who doesn't believe in in coming in second, he had his campaign go through petition signatures line by line, disqualifying enough of his opponent's signatures to disqualify them, making him the ONLY candidate on the ballot.²   Only ONE person had to be impressed with his youthful swagger and he would have won that election.  That one person was obviously Barack himself, as he so humbly described himself. 

I bring this up now because it should be known how Obama handles his campaigns.  The whole lipstick-on-a-pig controversy was a chess move on his part.  His campaign was thinking two moves ahead on this one, and here's how I think it was laid out.

Step one - make a hackneyed lipstick-pig reference.  The audience will instantly connect it to Sarah Palin's remark from a week earlier and will guffaw like seals at feeding time.

Step two - if no one objects, it's a successful shot across the bow of the new Palin machine: "See, I can be clever too!"  If people start to complain, get all indignant about "false controversy" and make the McCain campaign, or at least it's supporters, look petty.

Step three - bask in the media's predictable defense the remark, digging out old footage of other politicians, including McCain himself, using the same quip, and point out how this was not an intentional reference to Sarah Palin. 

I think far too much has been made of this, but if people think it was an innocuous remark, I disagree.  The truth is that while he may not have have been referring to her as the pig in this instance, it was certainly a reference to her popular remark, not some happy co-incidence.

This will only get worse, folks.  If you think Al Gore tried to steal the election in 2000, wait until Obama is behind in key states this year.  In a worst case scenario, every vote will be reviewed for it's legitimacy.  Any irregularity, real or percieved, will be used to disqualify as many of McCain's votes as possible.  Of course, McCain's campaign will have to follow suit and the election of our new president could be months in the offing.  It's how he got his start, and if he has to get that petty to win the presidency, he won't pause for a second to drag the nation through the knothole with him.

¹ Obama, Barack, The Audacity Of Hope  (New York: Random House, 2006), 2
² Freddoso, David, The Case Against Barack Obama (Sony eBook edition)   (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2008), 23