Memo to fellow McCain supporters: If our guy pulls this thing out, we need to be locked and loaded with our electoral vote vs. popular vote arguments.

It seems quite elementary to your humble Blog Goliard; yet the argument isn’t made effectively enough, often enough. So here are two points that need to be hammered home.

1) You don’t change the rules after the election has been held. Period.

2) One big reason behind point #1 (though hardly the only reason) is that the rules affect the strategy. John McCain was told that 270 electoral votes would win, regardless of the nationwide popular vote; and so he campaigned accordingly. (As did Obama.) He would have campaigned quite differently—practically taking up residence in California, for instance—if the popular vote majority was all that counted.

The way to drive home point #2 is to compare it to a baseball game. Going in, you, the manager, are told that the most runs wins. You strategize accordingly, and your team finishes with 2 runs on 3 hits. The opposition earns 1 run on 6 hits…and then files a protest with the league, claiming that awarding you a victory is completely unfair. After all, they were twice as successful at the plate as you were, if you’re counting the hits. And why wouldn’t you—the hits are up there on the scoreboard in big numbers alongside the runs for a reason, right?

Except that’s not what you had your team playing for. If it had been, you wouldn’t have tried that squeeze play in the fourth, or called for any other bunts either…wouldn’t have risked stealing second base in the sixth, which shortened the inning when you got caught…would have intentionally walked the other guy’s best hitters every single time, even if meant walking in the go-ahead run in the eighth…you get the picture.

This argument won’t convince Democrats desperate to see Obama win, of course; but one could make the additional point that they’ve had eight years to address what some of them called a grave injustice back in 2000, and I haven’t seen a serious push to amend the Constitution since then. (Of course, being Lefties, they have taken a stab or two at circumventing the Constitution…)