McCain crashes and burns in first post post-convention rally without Palin at his side.

(ed.note: Inspired by Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com.)

Let’s face it. Lipstick on a pig is a classic American phrase. And there’s just no better way to describe the McCain-Palin ticket. The ‘Reformer’ whose whole campaign and senate office is run by a crew of high-rolling DC lobbyists? The earmark slayer whose state this year got ten times more earmarks than any other state in the country? Whose city when she was mayor got twenty times as many? The whole operation is just one big bamboozling lie. And lipstick on a pig is just using good American English to explain it. If McCain and Palin don’t like it they should have thought of that before they decided to run as frauds.

Late Shameless Merchandizing Update: This wasn’t the idea. But we’re getting inundated with requests for lipstick pig t-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, buttons, etc. So we’re looking into putting those together and we’ll have a link for you to order soon.

And here we go …

Men’s T-shirt (click here to order)

Women’s T-shirt (click here to order)

Sarah Palin hasn’t stopped selling her bogus “Bridge to Nowhere” claim. But at least now it looks like the media has stopped buying …

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Charlie Gibson’s interview with Sarah Palin — her first contact with national media — will air Friday night on … 20/20.

John Fund reported yesterday in the Wall Street Journal that “Democrats have airdropped a mini-army of 30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers into Anchorage, the state capital Juneau and Mrs. Palin’s hometown of Wasilla to dig into her record and background.”

That report has ricocheted around the right wing echo chamber. Hannity picked it up last night on Fox News. A McCain surrogate parroted it today on Fox. Now, the McCain camp has an ad out repeating the Fund report, with images of a pack of wolves. This all after Marc Ambinder posted a statement from the DNC yesterday denying any such team had been dispatched.

The DNC has reiterated those denials today, and the Obama camp denies it as well (pointing to the DNC statement).

So we called up Fund, and he’s standing by his story, though he could not be more specific about which “Democrats” he was referring to. Hmmm …

(Ed. Note: I guess my only question is, why didn’t the Dems dispatch a team to Alaska?)

From TPM Reader WS:

Here in Wisconsin, one of the heads of the “Palin Truth Squad”, former Lt. Gov. Margaret Farrow is giving interviews, outraged over the lipstick comment. The state GOP has called a 1:30 press conference where a group of GOP women will rip into Obama for all of the assembled TV cameras.

My question… where the hell are the Democrats on this? Not just here, but nationally, they are letting Obama get bloodied over this. Where is Biden? Is he turning into this cycle’s Edwards? Where are Pelosi and Boxer and Sebelius today?

The campaign needs to stop forcing Obama to take on the entire right-wing… His organization in every state should have high-profile surrogates out there today ripping into McCain and Palin, not just on the lipstick, but on the the sex ed ad and the judge’s order for Palin to stay out of the divorce.

Where are these people?

I say this with the proviso that it’s clear that the polls are settling back to roughly a tie. And there’s no need for anyone to panic. But lots of people write in to say that the national polls don’t mean anything, that it’s the electoral college that decides the election and that Obama remains firmly in command on that count.

Don’t be fooled. Every electoral college count you see is by definition a lagging indicator simply because individual state polls don’t come in anywhere near as frequently as national polls. So when you point to an electoral counter, you’re referring to a composite picture that is a few weeks old. If the race remains a statistical tie as it is as of today, with a hair’s breadth of a McCain lead, the electoral map will soon rebalance to a rough tie as well.