It's not much of a shot, but it's a shot

I've got the stratagem for John McCain and Sarah Palin to pull out the election here in the last 10 days.

The polls mostly show Obama and Biden comfortably ahead. But they also show that the duo really hasn't closed the deal, as many of their backers, when questioned more deeply, still express vague doubts.

The line is this: America has a proud democratic tradition of a government of checks and balances. There won't be any if the Democrats gain the presidency, 60 seats for a veto-proof majority in the U.S. Senate and pick up 20 seats in the U.S. House. The Democrats are going to control Congress in all likelihood, so the only check and balance on congressional power is John McCain as president.

To some extent, this throws GOP candidates for the Senate and House under the bus, but many are going to lose anyway. Sen. Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina is already using this line in her latest ads, saying the Senate needs her to keep it from having a veto-proof 60-vote Democratic majority. As long as Republicans have at least 41 seats, they can sustain a filibuster.

The tax argument that McCain is using does have some resonance, but the checks and balances argument is even stronger. It's not tool late for Americans to rethink what they're doing, and pull out a narrow McCain victory,

He'd probably lose the popular vote, as Obama will sweep some states like Illinois and Massachusetts by huge margins and McCain will carry enough to win, but by very tiny margins. But that's the way the electoral college works--it takes 270 votes to win, and if you carry enough states to make that happen, that's all that counts.

McCain has a very narrow window of opportunity, with very few good options. He must carry all the states Bush carried, or lose a couple small ones and carry a big state like Pennsylvania.

It's not much of a shot, but it's a shot.