Now the McCain camp is trying to get in on the action.

Some of Obama’s primary successes look obvious in retrospect. He empowered volunteers to download call scripts and phone lists, for example, to contact voters in primary states where his field staff was thin.

The McCain campaign discovered people power.

It sounds basic, but traditional campaigns don’t like to release phone numbers for unsupervised calling. Not based on experience, mind you — since most avoid it altogether — but out of fear, or top-down habits, or inertia.

Obama’s operation showed that it worked fine, sabatoge was rare and Clinton was copying the tactic by the end of the primary.

Now it’s McCain’s turn.

A new McCain campaign email, written by a deputy campaign manager, flashes the tactics of Obama and the people-powered language of Howard Dean in a pitch for their new “online phone bank”:

We need your help to combat this and get the truth out to these voters. You are the most effective surrogate we have in this campaign. By reaching out to undecided voters, one by one, you are taking a crucial step towards our victory. (emphasis in original)

While any effective tactic will spread in politics, from online fund-raising to twittering rapid response, what’s striking here is the inclusive, people-powered language. McCain has been trying to wrest “change” from Obama, but who knew he was gunning for “community organizer,” too?