McCain too has invoked pigs in criticizing opponents. When Clinton released her healthcare plan last year, the Arizona senator portrayed it as a remake of the one she proposed when her husband, Bill Clinton, was president. "I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," McCain said.
Responding last year to GOP rival Mitt Romney's attacks on his immigration agenda, McCain said: "Never get into a wrestling match with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it."
The volleys over pigs and lipstick captured the increasing rancor of the race. McCain released a TV ad that said his opponent's lone accomplishment on education was legislation to teach comprehensive sex education to kindergartners. "Learning about sex before learning to read?" an announcer asks. "Barack Obama: Wrong on education. Wrong for your family."
As an Illinois state senator, Obama voted for a bill that revised the state's standards on sex education, from kindergarten through 12th grade. Obama says sex education should be "age appropriate," as determined by teachers and parents.
"It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.
"Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn't define what honor was," Burton said. "Now we know why."
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maeve.reston@latimes.com
peter.nicholas@latimes.com
Reston reported from Lebanon, Ohio; Nicholas from Lebanon, Va. Times staff writer Michael Finnegan contributed to this report.
