The way you win elections is by controlling the conversation. You put your opponent on defensive and you hammer the point home, over and over again. You make your opponent whine like a squealing pig. America does not like whiners.

Today, the Obama campaign won the day.

First, Joe Biden landed a zinger on stem cell research:

I hear all this talk about how the Republicans are going to work in dealing with parents who have both the joy, because there’s joy to it as well, the joy and the difficulty of raising a child who has a developmental disability, who were born with a birth defect. Well guess what folks? If you care about it, why don’t you support stem cell research?

Then, Barack Obama let loose hitting the McCain campaign where it hurts:

Obama poked fun of McCain and Palin’s new "change" mantra.

"You can put lipstick on a pig," he said as the crowd cheered. "It’s still a pig."

"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."

Predictably, the McCain campaign cried "sexism!", only to have their hypocrisy shoved back at them by journalists.

Let me understand this correctly. Sarah Palin declares to the world that she is a pitbull with lipstick on. And now her campaign is whining every time someone actually calls Palin and McCain on their lies? I didn’t know pitbulls whined.

The honeymoon is over for the McCain/Palin ticket. Welcome to the general election season.