Ramesh Ponnuru’s comments strike me as right: not only is Republican whining about lipstick and pigs cringe-inducingly absurd, but the decision to put the disastrous Jane Swift out in front of this is contrary to everything Sarah Palin is supposed to represent:

It’s not just that she was an incompetent and unpopular governor of Massachusetts, although she was, and had nothing like Palin’s credentials as a reformer. Her administration was a failure in significant part because of her inability to walk the line between public and private, work and family. She was the last female governor before Palin to be prominent for being pregnant in office, and she made a hash of things, using state aides as babysitters. Couldn’t the campaign have found someone who wasn’t such a counter-example to Palin?

In fact, the use of Swift is off-message and inappropriate in every way. Massachusetts Republicans had to call in Mitt Romney to save the governorship. Palin, by contrast, has provided a boost to McCain beyond anything Romney could ever have dreamed.