Lipstick. Pigs. Sex education of kindergartners. Abortions -- or the lack thereof -- as a qualification for public office.

It's getting nasty out there.

Whatever happened to the "honorable campaign," the "end to divisive politics" promised by both Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama at the start of their 2008 race for the presidency?

For the past three days, anyway, there's been no sign of any such thing. Instead, yesterday, South Carolina Democratic chair Carol Fowler was quoted in Politico.com as saying Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's "primary qualification [as the Republican vice-presidential nominee] seems to be that she hasn't had an abortion."

On Tuesday, Mr. Obama characterized Mr. McCain's promise to change Washington as "lipstick on a pig," a remark that GOP officials immediately claimed was a swipe at Ms. Palin.

There's a new McCain ad running in Pennsylvania that claims Mr. Obama supported sex education for kindergartners -- "learning about sex before learning to read?" an announcer's voice says over a photo of Mr. Obama smiling -- prompting Obama officials to denounce the ad as "shameful" and "downright perverse."

And Republicans are claiming that 30 Democratic National Committee operatives flew to Alaska to dig up dirt on Ms. Palin the day after Mr. McCain selected her as his running mate. The claim is completely untrue, former Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles, a Democrat, said yesterday.

Republicans have formed a "Palin Truth Squad" to counter allegations about the Alaska governor -- both personal and political -- while the Democrats unveiled their own "Alaska Myth Busters" yesterday to hammer away at Ms. Palin's support for pork-barrel projects like the $223 million "Bridge To Nowhere."

The Obama campaign is even using the previously taboo "L" word -- lie -- to characterize the McCain campaign's continuing insistence that Ms. Palin opposed the bridge.

Closer to home, Pennsylvania's Gov. Ed Rendell and Sen. Bob Casey, in a conference call with reporters yesterday, decried the McCain campaign's tactics, with Mr. Casey claiming that Republican consultants have "a Ph.D" in sleazy campaigning. In another conference call, Pennsylvania Republican women said they were appalled by Mr. Obama's "lipstick on a pig" remarks.

"It was insulting to women and insulting to Sarah Palin," said Joyce Haas, vice chair of the state Republican party.

All this shock and outrage at the other side's claims and counterclaims merely marks the official start to the real presidential campaign, said Pittsburgh-based Republican political consultant John Brabender -- in part because it's what the media likes to cover and what voters like to know about.

"What gets covered is the interesting, not the important," said Mr. Brabender. "This is the ultimate reality of campaigns today. Let's face it: Voters would rather read about this stuff than a side-by-side comparison of the candidates' energy plans."

Presidential campaigns "are run on a minute-by-minute basis, and you can be sure that every time John McCain says something, Barack Obama will be monitoring everything and move into action -- and vice versa," he added.

Indeed, shortly after Ms. Fowler's abortion comments were reported, Republicans scheduled a conference call with Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, who called on Mr. Obama to condemn her remarks.

"If a Republican had said this about a Democrat, it would be outrage of the century," Mr. Graham told reporters. "Our Democratic colleagues and opponents are in a meltdown mode over Governor Palin. They are seeing a threat they did not see before, and they're striking back, basically, in a panic."

Ms. Fowler apologized later.

Indeed, Ms. Palin -- whose selection has thrilled and energized conservative women as well as some Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters -- seems to be driving much of the heated rhetoric, said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, but presidential campaign trash talk is hardly a new development in American politics.

"There was some pretty horrible stuff thrown back and forth between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams," he noted. "Mrs. Jackson was called a slut, among other things, became ill and died, and President Jackson forever blamed Mr. Adams for killing his wife."

The difference today, Mr. Whalen added, is that "there's this thing called the Internet, so it gets out there pretty quickly. Fifty years ago people sat around in bars and talked about it. Now it's out in minutes."

The Obama campaign has rejected calls for apologies for the "lipstick on a pig" remark. "They seize on an innocent remark, try to take it out of context, throw up an outrageous ad because they know that it's catnip for the news media," Mr. Obama said in Virginia yesterday.

His campaign then issued a press release listing three instances in which Mr. McCain used the same expression.

Republicans were similarly unrepentant about the McCain campaign's sex education ad -- which actually refers to a bill Mr. Obama supported that protects young children against sexual predators

Today, at least, there will be a respite from all the rancor: Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain will be appearing together in New York City at two memorials to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, one at ground zero and another at Columbia University.

Mr. Whalen, for one, believes this current "bad patch" of nastiness will end on a precise date: Sept. 26.

"That's when the first presidential debate takes place, and that should put us back into a debate about issues," he said. "One candidate or the other will be particularly effective on one subject or the other and spark a whole new discussion, and this particular negative phase will be forgotten. Unless of course someone screws up and makes a gaffe, and then I guess it all starts again."