By Samuel Rubenfeld

With the national conventions now in the rear-view mirror, the general election campaign began its first full week with tactics learned from basketball’s Don Nelson.

When Nelson coached the Dallas Mavericks in the mid- to late-1990s, he taught his players to foul big men who struggle at the free-throw line late in the game, particularly Shaquille O’Neal during his prime, in what became known as “hack-a-Shaq.” The big man’s misses allowed for a scrappy come-from-behind victory.

Lipstick-gate is the latest political incarnation of this tactic.

The expression “putting lipstick on a pig” is as old as the cosmetic itself, and its use suddenly increased in the last week or so. John McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate on the Republican ticket, and she used a variation on the metaphor during her acceptance speech by saying the only difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom is lipstick.

But at a campaign event Tuesday in Virginia, Barack Obama used the “lipstick on a pig” expression to describe how he thinks McCain is covering up bad policies with the same “change” theme Obama’s been running on for months.

And the McCain campaign, along with right-wing talk radio and the conservative blogosphere, went into overdrive.

That afternoon, former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift, a McCain surrogate, said Obama “uttered what I can only deem to be disgraceful comments comparing our vice presidential nominee, Governor Palin, to a pig.” And on Wednesday morning, McCain’s campaign released an ad accusing Obama of sexism by trying to connect his comment to Palin.

With polls indicating that more than 80 percent of the American people believing the country is headed in the wrong direction, the underlying fundamentals put Democrats at a clear advantage this election cycle. McCain-Palin put Obama on the foul line here.

On Wednesday morning, Obama took his foul shot. “The McCain campaign would rather have the story about phony and foolish diversions than about the future,” Obama responded. “This happens every election cycle.”

McCain is guilty of using the phrase himself on more than four occasions in reference to withdrawal from Iraq and Hillary Clinton’s health care policies. And McCain’s former press secretary, Torie Clarke, who also once represented Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, wrote a book called “Lipstick on a Pig: Winning in the No-Spin Era.” McCain’s been hacking the blue team for months, but his campaign called foul Tuesday on a play where he wasn’t even touched.

The lipstick-gate scandal got the press, especially the punditocracy, hotter than a brawl at a Detroit Pistons game.

But the trip to the line invariably leads to another possession, so the distraction may be short-lived. With 54 days to go in an election year with an energy crisis, a shaky economy, staggering national debt, new competitors in China and India, and many more major issues to be decided by the next president, gimmick defenses and shots, especially ones this foul, won’t serve the electorate.