So, have any bloggers photoshopped a picture of Karl Rove with lipstick on him, yet?

Today’s top story about "the pig in lipstick" remark has to be the dirtiest politics I’ve seen in a long time. It might be even be lower than the image of Obama with the word sex on his head. And it wasn’t just some dudes on a blog pushing this willful misunderstanding of a phrase. McCain himself was shaking his head about it today. The trouble is that I think it’s working.

Sunday’s Times profiled one of Rove’s proteges who is one of McCain’s top advisers. The Times detailed Schmidt’s strategies.

Mr. Schmidt gave the war room a more central place in Mr. McCain’s
campaign, streamlining its decision making so only a few key aides
decide what is worthy of response and, more important in Mr. Schmidt’s
view, what presents an opportunity to attack Mr. Obama as elite, out of
touch and lacking substance. Junior aides work shifts across 24 hours,
scouring news outlets for tidbits with the potential to embarrass Mr.
Obama through circulation to bloggers, the Drudge Report, cable news
and newspapers.

My e-mail inbox is about to commit suicide. I’m swamped with e-mails at the moment. Some are from my various listservs which are buzzing about political events. Some are from school as the semester kicks into gear. But a whole lot are from the McCain camp, the Republican party, and a whole of lot of interest groups that have gotten my e-mail address from the blog. I get one e-mail a day from the Obama team, but I gave them my e-mail address.

There’s been a lot of buzz about how saavy the Obama team is about taking advantage of new media, but I think that the McCain is doing a better job. Obama’s website is too tasteful and boring. Too much blue and boring graphics. McCain’s website is easier to read and has images that pop. Obama’s website makes you download .pdf files to read their policy proposals. They have too many policy proposals. They need to be feeding bloggers messages daily.

Make it work, people.