Sassy Sarah Palin is a patriot who will change Washington -- she says. But she is sleeping with an America hater -- her husband, Todd Palin, who is a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group whose members want to secede from the United States of America. They hope to rip a star off Old Glory.

If it were just her nutty husband, we might forgive Sarah Palin. But Sarah Palin herself warmly welcomed the AIP's members to their convention this year, embracing them with open arms and saying that she "shares their vision ..." She told these America-hating Benedict Arnolds, "Keep up the good work."

And what are we to think of the tone-deaf John McCain? The old John McCain -- he no longer exists.

First, McCain selected the lost soul Palin as his running mate, and now he is copying Barack Obama's "change" campaign theme. Earlier, McCain's campaign was all about experience. But McCain hasn't played the experience card much lately because it wasn't flying with the people.

So, McCain chose an inexperienced running mate in Palin, and now is trying to cast himself as the candidate of change. John McCain wants to convince us he is for change when, in the past seven years, he has voted with Bush no less than 89 percent of the time on roll call votes on which President Bush had expressed an opinion, according to Congressional Quarterly. The only exception was a single year in which he agreed with Bush "only" 77 percent of the time. How dumb does McCain think we are?

As if that's not enough to chill a hard-working voter's interest in McCain, take a look at the people who are operating McCain's campaign. Then decide whether McCain will bring about change, whether he's for the big money people or for working people.

McCain's top strategist is Charlie Black, who has been a Washington lobbyist for AT&T, Philip Morris, General Motors and others.

Then there is the national chairman of McCain's campaign, Rick Davis -- another lobbyist. His close ties to the communications industry have resulted in some eye-popping connections between McCain and the telecoms. Davis has brought in more than 20 AT&T lobbyists to work in McCain's campaign. Another 18 come from Verizon's group of lobbyists.

Randy Scheunemann is McCain's No. 1 security adviser. He is a Washington lobbyist for several foreign governments including the country of Georgia. Others in Scheunemann's stable of clients include Taiwan and Macedonia. And Scheunemann is an old Bush administration crony. He was a close adviser to the incompetent Donald Rumsfeld and was one of the people who helped push us into the disastrous Iraq war.

Wayne Berman is co-chairman of McCain's fundraising efforts. He is a lobbyist whose clients have included Chevron, Shell Oil and several drug makers. He was a top dog with Ronald Reagan and with the first President George Bush, and he was a leading fundraiser for the current President Bush.

Don't forget good old Phil Gramm, a former senator who heard people saying "ouch" as they strained to pay for gas or were losing their homes, and called them "whiners." Although McCain dismissed Gramm as his top economic adviser, Gramm still co-chairs McCain's national campaign.

Will McCain and Palin change Washington? Not a chance. We will know them by the company they are keeping, whether it is a misguided group of traitors in Alaska, or a standard-issue group of insider Washington lobbyists. Shame on McCain and Palin for pretending to be something they are not.

W. Joseph Wyatt is a professor at Marshall University. He may be contacted at Wyatt@marshall.edu.

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