Wow, some of these are really wrong.

 The attack on Palin's family began a fairly effective and systematic attack on Palin in the media that largely offset the reasons that McCain picked her (e.g., appeal to women).  Her poor performance on Jeopardy with Charles Gibson would not have been so meaningful if she had not already been subjected to a full-bore, surprisingly nasty, campaign to discredit her as a candidate.  I am not sure that any VP choice, or anything else, could have offset the effect of the economoic crisis on McCain's campaign.  But, in that respect, almost nothing mattered in this campaign other than disapproval of George Bush, public's blaiming Republicans for the economic mess, and Obama's preternaturally cool temper.

Obama's change of position with respect to public financing probably did not effect many voters, but it has probably put the last nail in any future discussion of campaign finance reform.  It will have a profound effect on future campaigns.  So, in that respect, it is important.  It also shows probably more effectively than anything else (with the possible exception of his disavowals of Rev. Wright and his turnabout on NAFTA) that Obama is capable of gross dishonesty when it is needed to win. 

But, that may very well be a feature in a president, not a bug.  It actually gives me hope that he will be effective at triangulating, and not hampered by overstrong-commitment to ideology.  

I agree about the election-funding issue.

In fact, that should go into the reverse of this blog post; "stories that SHOULD have been big, but WEREN'T."  Election financing; Obama's "bankrupt coal-burners" comments.