I don't think anything changes because Obama still has an army of jobless people (whose money earners are at work) to volunteer, people from Saudi Arabia and Kenya donating money illegally, and of course, First Name Last Name, of Detroit, in his corner.
Atwater's smear tactics were legendary. He definetly could've stoaked tension in places like Florida or North Carolina with a "Reverend Wright" ad.
Not to mention any competent campaign manager would've told McCain to stop going for broke in Pennsylvania, when it wasn't making a difference.
I think the biggest problen was that the nom of Sarah Palin was amazingly short-sighted. It was only done to distract people from Obama's DNC speech, and it worked, but it didn't really pan out for the election.
It worked until the financial crisis.
