If I have this schedule figured rightly, sometime next week John McCain will challenge Barack Obama to a duel over Sarah Palin.

Someone – probably not even Obama, maybe just one of those annoying reporters who are being kept away from Palin like polar bears from a baby musk ox – will ask about her international experience and opinion, and McCain will throw back his velvet cape and cry, “Have a care, sir!”

Or somebody will ask about Palin’s newfound opposition to earmarked spending, after her time as governor of Alaska showed her to have a greater taste for earmarks than Mike Tyson, and McCain will accuse him of bandying a lady’s name.

Maybe one of those irritating people who have Internet access will point out that Palin’s claim to have stopped the “Bridge to Nowhere” is nonsense, that she supported it until Congress stepped on it, that she took the money anyway, and that the real Alaska pipeline runs from the federal treasury to the state, and McCain will demand, “Swords or pistols?”

So far, the campaign has attacked Obama for “smearing” Palin, and called his comments “offensive and disgraceful,” although the main thing he has said about Palin was that her family should not be criticized. The Republican National Committee has called Joe Biden’s comments on Palin’s abortion position “arrogant” and “appalling.” The McCain campaign is incensed that newspapers and networks are sending reporters to Alaska and that the Democrats are looking into Palin’s record. The cads.

“The more The New York Times and The Washington Post go after Sarah Palin, the better off she is, because there’s a bigger truth out there and the bigger truths are she’s new, she’s popular in Alaska, and she is an insurgent,” Republican strategist John Feehery told The Washington Post. “As long as those are out there, these little facts don’t really matter.”

In fact, bringing up facts at all is ungallant.

Sometime soon, when Palin is asked an impertinent question at a news conference, McCain will come galloping in and sweep her onto his saddle.

Except she’d have to hold a news conference.

Ever since the GOP convention, the McCain campaign’s major theme has been chivalrous indignation, a knightly displeasure that anyone should question a lady. The campaign has responded to any disagreement with Palin with an attack of the vapors.

Most recently, the McCain campaign lunged for its rapier when Obama said of the Republican ticket’s call for change, “You can put lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig.” Since Palin had used the word “lipstick” in her convention speech, and had therefore acquired a patent on it, the campaign charged that Obama was calling Palin a pig, and even put out an Internet ad entitled “Lipstick.”

In line with the campaign’s policy of taking on the big issues, it will be followed by spots entitled “Eyeliner” and “Blusher,” although it is hard to see what could make this campaign blush.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift said the comment clearly targeted Palin because “She is the only one of the four candidates for president, or the only vice presidential candidate, who wears lipstick.”

If she’s not, reporters have a real story.

In terms of sensitivity, we’ve come a long way from the John McCain who chuckled merrily when a South Carolina supporter asked him about Hillary Clinton, “How do we beat the (bad word rhyming with stitch)?” We’ve even come a ways from the John McCain who said of her health care plan, “I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”

Now, the Republican campaign is considering having its two candidates appear together throughout the next two months, as McCain and Palin evolve from a presidential ticket into a co-dependent relationship: He needs her to draw crowds, she needs him to keep people from asking her questions.

And both of them need to keep the focus away from the rising unemployment rate, the record federal deficit and the tick-ticking sound coming from Wall Street and the health care system.

The new ticket’s theme isn’t “Change”; it’s “Change the Subject.”

Of course, anyone who says so might find himself challenged to a duel.

Lipstick and pigs, at 20 paces.

David Sarasohn is an associate editor at The Oregonian of Portland, Ore. E-mail [email protected].