These were among John McCain’s last words in his acceptance speech last night, and as bumper-sticker mottos go, I think it’s pretty catchy. Of course, it causes you to think of the inevitable exceptions to that maxim — death and taxes (though not, Republicans would posit, the “death tax”). They would also like to add to the list: the short memory of voters. 

As he heads into the battle season, McCain’s playing a complicated game. He has appeased the base with red meat from this year’s Spiro Agnew, Sarah Palin, while reminding even the most casual viewer of what a white party the GOP is. And now he is trying to get those moderates that remain to remember the earlier McCain: the reformer, the iconoclast, the maverick. (Did you hear that word often enough this week? I half expected them to play the theme song from the old TV show of the same name, though McCain may have been the only one on stage who would remember it. Instead they played Heart’s “Barracuda,” which prompted the song’s author, Democrat Nancy Wilson, to tell EW, “I feel completely fucked over.”)

It is going to be interesting to see how, from his position on the prow of the ship that brought us endless war and a tanking economy,  JMC continues to disassociate himself from it. Watching all those red-faced men in blue blazers chanting for change was funny in a Brooks Brothers riot kind of way, but don’t laugh too long. An Obama victory is far from assured;  I believe this election, like many before it, will be settled by the least attentive voters, who are moved by their last impression. If theirs is one of John McCain, Moderate Guy, we could lose.

I’m still counting on the stink bomb set off by the W White House to move people in the other direction. The president’s plummeting approval rating over the last four years was not a blip on the screen but a true case of buyer’s remorse. And those who voted for him in ’04 did not just buy the man, they bought the party and the party line. Maybe those who have been burned will remember this time. Another thing that is inevitable is change.