But according to Thomas Edsall, the McCain camp has decided that it doesn't need the media anymore:

The McCain campaign, however, is banking on the notion that the steady decline in trust in the media has reached the point of no return, that the press and television can no longer play the role of umpire or national arbiter of what is accurate and what is untrue, what is fair game and what is out of bounds.

The McCain campaign is making no secret of its changed stance. "We recognize it's not going to be 2000 again," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers told Politico, referring to the campaign eight years ago when McCain was revered by the media for his transparency and accessibility.

"He lost then," Rogers said. "[Now] We're running a campaign to win. And we're not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it."

Bush/Cheney told BIG LIES.  McCain/Palin tell small, petty easily refuted lies.

Narcissists and other types of sociopathic personalities lie with absolute aplomb. It is one of the diagnostic criteria for the disorder. Bush appears to be a textbook narcissist, yet there are times he knows he is lying and does not feel 100% comfortable with it. At those times he telegraphs it clearly (his snicker - hehehehehe - is one of the ways he does it). With Palin either she is able to lie without any twinge of conscience, or I have not watched her enough to detect her indicators that she is knowingly lying, and is not entirely comfortable with it. McCain, when he knows he is lying and is not completely comfortable with his lies, goes into what some people have described as a "robotic" state.

Palin may be a narcissistic personality - she certainly shows some of the signs. Narcissists are often very charming, engaging people, more often than not exceptionally intelligent, or at least quick witted, and lack the capacity to feel empathy for other beings. They are by definition sociopaths to one degree or another, and tend to lie habitually, sometimes by preference, and even when telling the truth would clearly be in their best interest. They have a grandiose sense of themselves, their abilities, and their impact on other people. Sarah Palin's support, and apparent enjoyment of the brutal practice aerial hunting shows, to my way of thinking anyway, a lack of empathy (there are plenty of videos on You Tube that give you a sense of what the animals go through that are hunted in that way. She certainly lies with ease, even when she must know that what she is saying has been exposed as a lie. And she does appear to have grandiose ideas about herself.

As for McCain, he certainly could be a narcissist as well, and/or a sociopath, and who knows what damage his experiences as a POW did to his personality. Wow! Just what we need - another sociopath in the White House with a third one waiting eagerly in the wings.

she only appeals to the type of voter who was likely to vote Republican anyway.

You are overlooking that until McCain pulled Palin out of a hat, the Republican base was demoralized. The Republicans can't win without their demented base, and before Palin, there was every reason to think that the turnout of the base would have been inadequate.

At this stage, I think the main thing that gives McCain a good chance of winning the election is that many Americans who have not swallowed the Republican Kool Aid still cannot bring themselves to vote for a black for president.

It would have been different if the Democrats had demonized the Republican party, which they choosed not to do when they took impeachment off the table.

looked to me like she was avoiding all but the minimum body contact with a serial groper!

john doesn't bring out the cuddle factor enough...

"Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich." Peter Ustinov

I was just about to post a link that to that.  :)

I love the woman with the sign saying "My daughter deserves better".

"Little people are very stuff-intensive."

Wow! That made my day! Everybody should see this one. I especially liked the idea of a "Women Reject Sarah Palin Day".

"I never trust people who don't laugh." Maya Angelou, March 5, 2009

"Their secrecy is off the charts," Mr. Steiner said.

Secrecy and back room dealings are a familiar characteristic of republican administrators in our state as well, from the governor's office right down to the county level. Our dear leader Mitch Daniels would like to reform local government to eliminate many elected local offices. So much easier to control appointees, don't you think?

"I never trust people who don't laugh." Maya Angelou, March 5, 2009

Wow - sounds just like a replay of the Bush regime!

Has anyone ever definitely determined what the bump on Bush's back was during one of the debates?

"Sequestering Palin is the only strategy left to the McCain campaign, given the Gibson catastrophe."

WHAT catastrophe? You mean the "catastrophe" that actually left a number of DEMOCRATIC voters reassured about her? Yup! That's what I was hearing over and over again the day after.

It might have looked like a catastrophe to people like you and me, but it was only a catastrophe if other people saw it the same way, and there is evidence that a lot of people who SHOULD have seen it that way, saw it in quite another.