McCain on SNL: A reminder that votes, like undergarments, are non-refundable

Finally, the old Sen. John McCainJohn McCain decided to make an appearance.

On the last "Saturday Night Live" before Election Day, he poked fun at himself and his opponent in a way that was genuinely humorous, and he didn’t seem at all offended by the ongoing comedic implications regarding Gov. Sarah PalinSarah Palin’s lack of readiness for prime time.

This Dia de los Muertos McCain seemed more relaxed than he has been throughout the entire campaign, inclusive of the GOP primary season. In short, the McCain of Saturday night reminded Punditty of then-Vice President Al GoreVice President Al Gore in his concession speech on Dec. 13, 2000 (See embedded video).

If the frank, forthright and statesmanlike Gore had shown up more often during the campaign rather than only when it was time to wave the white flag of surrender, the Democrats may well have carried Florida on the first go-round.

But McCain, like Gore, squandered repeated opportunities throughout the fall campaign. Gore's were of a different nature than McCain's, but the end result will be the same: losing.

By selecting radical right-wing darling Palin as his running mate, McCain caved to the most fearful, emotional bloc of the GOP, the kind of people who have actually been recorded on tape saying things like “they” (people with skin that isn’t white) would “take over” under an Obama presidency.

Sadly for McCain, his own poorly vetted VP pick and her obvious lack of qualifications prevented him from running the kind of campaign that would have put him in a position to win. She spoke to fears, not to hope, and somewhere along the way, she became her own travelling road show.

McCain lost control and dared not steer Palin back toward a more honorable path for fear of alienating those who said such terrible, hateful things about Obama while clinging to Palin as if she were some new Reagan, here on her white horse of willful ignorance to rescue the Republican Party.

McCain's failure to take charge from the outset cost him dearly. Had the GOP nominee intervened when former Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully peppered Palin’s VP acceptance speech with sniping attacks on Obama, he could have taken the high ground in the campaign rather than relying on demonstrably false attacks to rally support.

But he didn’t. McCain chose anger over graciousness, thus ensuring that Palin’s incendiary words would light a fire under Obama’s base at least as much, if not more so, than the fanatical wing of the Republican party to which he was playing.

Had McCain truly suspended his campaign and flown back to Washington to oppose the Great Bailout of 2008, he could have then rightly reclaimed the "maverick" label and vaulted to a lead in the polls by siding with the vast majority of Americans who initially opposed the deal. But he didn’t. McCain chose grandstanding over effectiveness, his own political future over the good of the country.

Had he tried the "double maverick" approach he joked about on SNL, McCain could have run an ad early on making it very clear that he knows Obama is a good, decent man. He could have even shifted gears mid-campaign, using the tape where his strident anti-Obama supporters booed him for defending the Democrat's honor to a woman worried about Obama of being a terrorist. Or was it the Muslim angle that had her so upset?

No matter, he did no such thing. McCain stayed on the low road, shifting from smear tactic to smear tactic, turning finally to some surrealistically inspired quasi-everyman, "Joe the Plumber," as the person who might resuscitate his dying presidential hopes by stubbornly refusing to face facts on the candidates' respective tax plans.

But Saturday night brought us a kinder, gentler McCain. From the opening bit that spoofed Sen. Barack ObamaBarack Obama’s financial advantage and multi-network infomercial last week, McCain was in rare form. For a moment, Punditty could almost see the man he voted for in the 2000 Republican primary, before the eight-year nightmare known as Bush-Cheney. Then again, that could be because McCain’s lines weren’t written by Republican heavies who seemingly lack the constitutional capacity for anything other than attacks.

If so, they never would have allowed one of McCain’s last lines, a line that is nothing if not an attack on his own faltering claim to the presidency.

"As a reminder," the old war horse said as a skit drew to a close, "all undergarments are non-refundable." It was funny in that context, but whether McCain knew it or not, he was doing more than just delivering a line for laughs. He was reminding Americans of something else that’s non-refundable: their votes.

And so it goes. A joke about underwear turns into a reminder of how much is at stake, a reminder that after thousands of polls upon thousands of polls, America only has one chance at getting it right in this election. A president may or may not be like a pair of boxers, but there is definitely a no-return policy in effect for the next four years.

All evidence to date in this campaign has shown that Obama, excuse the pun, will be a much better fit for the United States of America.