Obama's 'lipstick-on-a-pig' remark sparks row

Arlington, Virginia: With the US presidential race tightening in a struggle for women voters, John McCain on Wednesday seized on a remark about lipstick by rival Barack Obama as a sexist attack on his running mate.

McCain rolled out a Web advertisement on Wednesday saying his Democratic rival was talking about Sarah Palin on Tuesday when he likened Republican plans for government reform to putting "lipstick on a pig."

Palin, a little-known Alaska governor before she became McCain's running mate, had told the Republican nominating convention this month that she was a "hockey mom" and joked that the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull was lipstick.

McCain's new advertisement juxtaposes the lipstick remarks by Obama and Palin, then cuts to a TV news presenter observing that one lesson of the campaign was the "continued and accepted role of sexism in American life. “Ready to lead? No,” McCain's ad says in print across the TV screen. “Ready to smear? Yes.”

Obama's campaign spokeswoman Linda Douglass said it was clear from his remarks on Tuesday that the Democratic presidential candidate was not referring to Palin in his comments and was not calling her a pig.

"There is no doubt that the McCain campaign is doing everything it can do to distract voters from the fact that they have no solutions to America's economic troubles," she said.

McCain is "running a relentlessly dishonest, disruptive and cynical campaign in hopes of distracting voters," she said. Opinion polls since the Republican and Democratic conventions show McCain closing the gap with Obama ahead of the November 4 election.

Pig and lipstick

A Washington Post/ABC News survey found most of McCain's surge was due to a big shift in support among white women voters. Obama rejects the idea that he is losing ground among women voters.

PAGE_BREAK

Obama, a senator from Illinois, made the "lipstick on a pig" remark during a speech in Lebanon, Virginia, on Tuesday while ridiculing McCain's assertion since the Republican nominating convention that he and Palin would be "agents of change" in Washington.

"You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig," Obama said as the crowd cheered and shouted and eventually stood. "You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still gonna stink." "We've had enough of the same old thing," Obama said.

McCain, a senator from Arizona, has used the "lipstick on a pig" line in the past himself, specifically earlier in the campaign when talking about the policies of Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton, who lost in the primaries to Obama.