If Palin was not a woman and if she didn't decribe the difference between a pitbull and a hockey mom as being lipstick, this would be an non issue. "Lipstick on a pig" is a phrase that has been used at least since 1985 to describe superficial changes to a thing to make the product more attractive. Here are a few quotes in history:

<1985 “KNBR, the AM radio station carrying Giants baseball games, had raised $20,000 toward the construction of a new downtown stadium. The board of supervisors, reluctant to commit to such a project, asked if they couldn’t use the money to renovate Candlestick Park. ‘That,’ replied KNBR personality Ron Lyons, ‘would be like PUTTING LIPSTICK ON A PIG.’-—Washington Post, 16 November, page C1> [[Ron Lyons grew up in, North Carolina]]

<1986 “‘No one is fooled by this purely cosmetic change,’ said Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower, an outspoken critic of the Reagan administration’s farm credit policies. ‘It’s like PUTTING LIPSTICK ON A PIG. It can’t hide the ugliness.’”—Dallas Morning News, 8 January>

<1986 “Mrs. Parker likes to describe Anderson [[Kansas farmer and state spokesman for the American Agricultural Movement]] as outspoken. He once called a piece of legislation an attempt to ‘PUT LIPSTICK ON A PIG, . . .”—Atchison Daily Globe (Kansas), 31 March, page 3>

<1986 “. . . a broadcaster with the New York Mets, said: ‘Somebody once told me that putting a dome on Candlestick would be like PUTTING LIPSTICK ON A PIG.’”—Los Angeles Time,15 June> [[se 1985 quote above]]

<1987 “But to say we are a good football team is like PUTTING LIPSTICK ON A PIG. There is no way the pig is going to be pretty.”—Galveston Daily News (Texas), 2 October, page 16>

<1990 “‘Nice clothes on me is like PUTTING LIPSTICK ON A PIG . . . . I can't believe that I am an emcee to the first fashion show I've ever seen,’ Bedsworth said.”—Orange County Register (Santa Ana, California), 25 October>

<1994 “Modest health-care reforms would be like ‘PUTTING LIPSTICK ON A PIG,’ but it's doubtful Congress will have the appetite for sweeping changes . . .”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas), 19 October>

<2000 “‘Were the court to accept all of Microsoft's proposed changes,’ the brief continued, ‘the government's proposed final judgment would be improved, but much of the vagueness and ambiguity would remain because it is inherent in the structure of document.’ A Microsoft spokesman, Mark Murray, said, ‘We view our revisions as PUTTING LIPSTICK ON A PIG.’”—New York Times, 2 June>

<2003 “Economists should not preach to noneconomists, who already know all they want to know about their self-interest. They aren’t likely to respond favorably to an altar call. As they about PUTING LIPSTICK ON A PIG, it’s a waste of time and it annoys the pig.”—Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 70, No. 1, July, page 4>

<2004 “John Edwards, Kerry's running mate, echoed Kerry's criticism of Friday's job-creation numbers. ‘They're going to try every way they know to PUT LIPSTICK ON THIS PIG,’ the North Carolina senator told cheering supporters at a rally in a Green Bay amusement park. ‘But you know when you PUT LIPSTICK ON A PIG, at the end of the day, it's still a pig.’”—Los Angeles Times, 4 September>

<2006 “. . . I return to that old aphorism: You can PUT LIPSTICK ON A PIG, but it's still a pig. If you've got a pig on your hands—which is to say, a tough story—no lipstick can be laid on thick enough to cover up that fact.”—LIPSTICK ON A PIG: Winning in the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game by Torie Clark, page 232-233> [[former Pentagon spokeswoman and the former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfled in the early Bush administration]]

<2007 “GM hasn't won over all the skeptics. Sticking a hybrid engine in a jumbo SUV is ‘PUTTING LIPSTICK ON A PIG,’ says Ronald Hwang, vehicle policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, who argues that if GM is green serious, it should give up SUVs and build more efficient cars.”—www.Time.com, 11 October>

<2008 “She [[Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan]] was furious after reading comments made by the Alliance's [[US-Ireland Alliance pre-Oscar awards in Hollywood]] president Trina Vargo, in which she said efforts to help make the immigrants legal were ‘morally wrong’ and like PUTTING ‘LIPSTICK ON A PIG.’”—The Mirror (London), 7 January>

<2008 “The committee voted 15 to 12 against a proposal to give Florida full voting representation. Clinton supporters in the audience erupted in a chant of ‘Denver! Denver!’ - - a threat to take the fight to the convention in August. That was followed by a unanimous vote to give Florida half of its voting rights. The audience again erupted in heckling. ‘LIPSTICK ON A PIG!’ somebody shouted.”— Washington Post, 1 June>

Sure Krimson but you have to admit Palin coined the term lipstick in this election with her hockey mom line. That is what people remember. By obama using the word "lipstick" and "pig" he made a huge mistake.

He should have known better having gone to Harvard and learning that "Words do Matter".

I believe it was innocent and I can't see him going there. Fact remains this is an election and the perception could turn an election like it or not.