...then Obama wins.

Hands in his pockets.

It isn't even
anything as meaty as the issues, or his policies.  That stuff has very
little mass or weight with a majority of the voters, anyway.  It's all
about viscera.  Graphics.  Quick hits.  Visuals.  How it feels to most people.  What it looks like.

And
let's face it, if McCain has really conceded the point that this
election is about 'change' and 'reform' -- and certainly, he seems to
have by picking Palin and trying to package her as a non mainstream
maverick reformer just like him -- then he's taking the losing side of
the bet.  Why?

Look at them.

You want change?  You want reform?  You want something different from this day forward? 

Well,
who you gonna call?  The skeevy old white guy who is  lying just as
fast as a horse can trot, spouting hypocritical platitudes out of both
sides of his mouth?  The one who's been kneedeep in the Washington
hoopla since the 1980s, always on the side of the corporate
establishment regardless of what he claims now?   The one whose entire
campaign is staffed with high powered lobbyists and being run by Karl
Rove? Yeah, there's something new and different, something voters don't
see every couple of years like clockwork.  Sure.

Or, y'know, you
can vote for that young black man who is obviously as smart as a whip,
and who isn't part of the political mainstream in any particular.  Who
has no lobbyists on his payroll, whose campaign isn't being run by
party hacks.

Which of these packages is truly different?

McCain's
pick of Palin was meant to address this, meant to present more of an
image of 'change' and 'reform'.  On the surface she sure seems
different from the usual VP pick... say, Joe Biden.  But (a) people
don't really vote for the VP on the ticket, although many will vote
AGAINST a truly disastrous choice, and (b) Palin's image as a reformer,
as 'something different', is just barely skin deep.  She's no
reformer.  She's a typical 'get it while the getting is good'
conservative/Republican.  She's racist, corrupt, deceitful, spoiled,
shallow, and mean... a poster girl for Abrahamoff-era Washington. 
That's not change.  That's not reform.  That's just more of not only
the same-old same-old, but the absolute worst of the same-old same-old,
in a hot MILF package.

So if McCain truly has allowed this
election to move forward on Obama's terms... if he really has decided
he needs to cut a big slice of that 'change' pie off for himself if he
wants to have any chance whatsoever of winning... then he has no chance
whatsoever of winning.  It's like he's decided to use rope-a-dope on
Mohammed Ali, like he's going to throw harder punches than Mike Tyson,
like he's going to scramble faster and pass more accurately than
Michael Vick.

Like he's going to challenge the Flash to a foot race, and win.

McCain, for Change?  McCain, the Reformer?

Nuh UH.