To put it bluntly, if John McCain comes across in the last presidential debate as a "gentleman," then Barack Obama is going to wipe the floor with him.

This may not mean much when Election Day rolls around. If you go back to the Bush-Kerry debates, you may remember that the left was proclaiming victory through its propaganda outlets - NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC - etc., after it anointed Kerry the winner of all three encounters. But victory proved elusive.

I won't change my vote based on the outcome of a presidential debate, but others may. You never know.

I believe McCain was not well served by whomever arranged these "debates" in the first place. They supposedly are run by an impartial presidential "debate commission" the very name of which gives the impression of government approval, when the actual "debate commission" is a private bunch of left-wingers.

The Public Broadcast "moderators" who have run the earlier debates are hardly moderate, they are clearly left-leaning, they know it and admit it. In addition, only the moderators create the questions, which means you are going to get softballs for Barack Obama and spitballs for McCain.

But that isn't the issue here. Background - meaning the background of the candidates - is the issue.

Barack Obama is a product of the streets, regardless of how he tries to cover that up. He may have gone to HAAAVAAD, and he may even think he sounds like an intellectual by saying PACHISTAHN instead of Pakistan, but he can't hide his origins, even if he does refuse to produce a birth certificate or proof of citizenship.

Obama's history shows that when things get difficult for him, he gets mean and ugly. Ask Hillary Clinton, she'll tell you what it was like.

McCain on the other hand, is the offspring of multiple generations of career Navy officers; Admirals no less.

Barack went to a small college before he was miraculously plucked from among the masses for re-education and indoctrination at HAAAVAAD.

McCain graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Now in some regards you may think that would help McCain in the fighting arena. But not necessarily.

The Academy teaches boxing and self-defense, but it also teaches gentlemanly behavior, at all times on all occasions. Even Admirals can get thrown out of the Navy for "conduct unbecoming an officer." Remember that because it is essential.

What all this means is that John McCain is honor bound to fight cleanly. He can be expected to throw lots of jabs and hooks, occasional upper cuts, and ultimately look for a knockout blow to the jaw.

Barack on the other hand, will appear to fight cleanly, but all the while he is plotting sneak attacks to exploit his opponents' weaknesses. Barack will punch to the back of the head, punch low, use sucker punches, and kicks to the groin to get his opponent down.

And when his opponent is down, he'll continue kicking to vital spots, to make sure the opponent not only stays down, but is not likely to ever get up again. Once again, ask Hillary Clinton.

Barack sees the world differently than McCain, and in politics the advantage thus goes to Obama. Barack has no qualms about throwing a wad of paper at the back of the teacher's head and then pointing at the kid in the front row and yelling "He did it, he did it!"

In fact, that pretty much is the basis of Democratic political strategy.

But Annapolis grads fight differently - except for James Webb, who after all, joined the Marines. For instance, Navy Admirals have vast amounts of weaponry at their disposal, and they can order a ship to attack using the full range of its arsenal, or for that matter, they can order coordinated attacks by entire fleets.

They train for this and are extraordinarily good at it. They usually win in these circumstances through sheer force and application of a wide variety of weapons.

But when American ship Captains sink or shoot down an opponent, they will pluck the survivors from the water and provide humane treatment including medical care. Even our POW camps, including Guantanamo, are models of humanity compared to what our enemies traditionally provide for captured Americans.

But if you put Barack in the same position as an American Naval Captain, especially if he has taken casualties, or been wounded himself, he is far more likely to machine gun any survivors when they are in the water than have to concern himself with humane care of POWs.

So while the media is talking about "spirited" debates, which we have not had so far, except for Palin-Biden, they are really describing a patty-cake style of conflict that is ineffective for both sides.

But both sides know that if they are going to get any kind of momentum from the last presidential debate they better score and score big. They have to make the other side look weak and ineffective.

This works in Obama's favor because he will have no qualms about sucker punching McCain if he gets the chance. McCain may end up on the floor writhing in pain calling Obama a "dirty fighter" and deriving some sort of moral superiority from it, but Obama will be dancing around him chanting "I won, I won!"

McCain is the kind of nice guy who if he went below decks on a ship, say to the engine room, and saw a big wrench on the floor with two very disheveled sailors standing nearby, he'd assume they had been working on loosening a tough nut, or tightening a noisy engine bearing.

Obama in the same situation would look for blood to see if the wrench was not a wrench but a weapon that had been used by one of the sailors to swat the other one upside the head.

"Stand up!" McCain is imploring his supporters. "Stand up and fight!"

OK, that's a good start. But if he wants to win this battle, McCain has to take his own advice. He can be humane when he is dealing with the vanquished, but until then he should take to the last debate, and the campaign trail, with a baseball bat in one hand and a set of brass knuckles in the other.

Good isn't going to triumph over evil in this race if good looks like a wimp. McCain needs to go for the vital spots and use every weapon at his disposal to exploit them, including a knee to the groin if the opportunity arises.