Every time a fellow opens his mouth he tells you something about himself – though politicians try harder than most folks to fool you.

Senator John McCain spoke for a solid hour on Fox News Primary Night – and it was tough sledding. He read his speech from a teleprompter – and it was not an old war hero’s finest hour. Sadly, listening to McCain’s speech was like listening to a seventy-two year-old Naval Academy grunt reading the naval regulations out loud to a captive audience. Or, it was like watching an old political war horse charging out of the starting gate then slowly losing speed as he rounded the first turn, so, by the home stretch, you were just hoping he’d last to the finish line. The pundits on Fox – who like McCain – put the best face on it possible, saying, Well, reading a speech isn’t Senator McCain’s strong suit. You just have to take him like he is.

Next Hillary spoke. After she won South Dakota. And she was: Blunt. Earlier in the day she told a group of New York Congressmen she was ready to run for Vice President. And that night she had a message for Obama: I got eighteen million votes. Eighteen million people voted for me. People ask what I want? I tell them I want those eighteen million people – who voted for me – to be respected.

Translation: Senator Obama, put me on the ticket or disrespect those eighteen million people.

Finally Senator Obama spoke. And McCain and Hillary would have done better not to show up. When it comes to the spoken word it’s hard to do justice to Obama’s power. His speech had melody and harmony and ended with a full symphony orchestra overture.

I used to think when Barack Obama talked about change he meant cleaning up corruption in Washington. But, as the campaign unfolds, I’m beginning to think he means something entirely different. One way to look at it is that he’s talking about the change of electing the first African-American president. The other is a little blunter: he’s talking about old white men. He’s saying, the way he sees it, the ‘Era of White Male Presidents’ is coming to an end – and he doesn’t mean it vindictively. He just sees that as the next (beneficial) step in democratic historical progress – empowering women and minorities and young people. Giving them their rightful place at the political table.

What made Obama’s speech fascinating was that he spoke directly to John McCain, and through McCain, I suspect, to older white males who might have their qualms about what his idea of historical progress means for them.

He started out simply by telling his own supporters that Senator McCain is a war hero. A genuine American hero. Then he spoke directly to McCain, saying, Senator McCain, we honor your service. We honor your sacrifice. But it is time for a change. This is our moment. This is our time.

Obama sees this election not as a shift of power but a changing of the guard. It’s time, he’s saying, respectfully, for a new generation (and a new coalition) to have its turn at solving Americans’ problems.

All this leaves Republicans wrestling with a fundamental question that’s hard for a lot of us ‘white males’ to get our arms around. Is Obama right? Is he the voice of a historic change that alters the natural order of things? Are we – inevitably – about to lose our place at the head of the political table? Or is Obama an incredibly talented demagogue who’s created a short-term firestorm – but in time the natural order will reassert itself, the ship will right itself and political life will return to normal?

That’s a question the ‘best and brightest’ minds in the Republican Party need to answer – only to do it they have to stop playing by (and suspend belief in) the political rules they’ve lived with for a generation. And worse, beyond that, the answers are confusing. The signs point in both directions.

For instance – as should have happened according to the old rules – the Wright videos took their toll on Obama. He dropped in the polls. And started losing primaries to Hillary left and right. But, on the other hand, the videos only slowed him down. They didn’t stop him. He marched straight on to the nomination.

And, then, they’re those rallies every night. We Republicans keep telling ourselves – under the old rules – the number of volunteers a campaign has doesn’t mean much. Historically, in race after race, legions of volunteers have meant an intense, but narrow, base. More often than not the candidate with armies of vocal and vociferous volunteers lost. Ron Paul is an example. He had legions of small donors giving over the internet – but hardly ever broke into double digits in votes.

But, then again, whoever heard of a candidate filling arenas with twenty or thirty thousand people a night? Obama’s given the term ‘legions of volunteers’ a whole new meaning.

Is that a sign he’s riding a wave of historic change?

Or George McGovern in the Age of the Internet?

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