THE ELECTION

Posted at 7:33 a.m. ET

I'm reminded of the famous David Low cartoon, published in London's Evening Standard, on June 18th, 1940, just after France fell to Hitler.  You've probably seen it.  It depicts the defiance of the British people, but also depicts an understanding of their situation:

"Very well, alone." 

That pretty much tells the story of the McCain campaign.  If they win this fight, they must do it alone.  Usually, a campaign can get at least part of its story out through the mainstream press.  In this election, we are faced with a level of press corruption so great that, in my view, it threatens the future of the nation itself.  I am not given to extreme statements, but, for reasons I will discuss at another time, I believe that to be true,

Voters do not get their news directly.   They get it through media.  If you want to know what that can do to a nation, simply look at what people in Muslim countries are told by their press every day, and how it distorts their world view.

Walter Lippmann once called news "the picture in our heads."  The media creates an image for us.  Our decisions are based on that image.  If the image is reasonably correct, we can decide wisely.  If it isn't, we cannot.   

In this campaign, it is impossible for McCain to get his message out through the media because major press organizations simply add the Obama talking points to many stories, making McCain into a liar, or even worse.  Consider the AP's outrageous contention, posted over the weekend, that Sarah Palin's accurate charge that Obama has associated with a known terrorist, is tinged with racism.  Say what?  What does racism have to do with that?  Bill Ayers, the T-guy in question, is quite white.  It is an example of the kind of journalism we're getting these days.

Jim Geraghty, of NRO's Campaign Spot, notes:

Palin is bringing up Barack Obama's long connection to William Ayers... okay.

I don't doubt that not enough Americans know about Obama and his ties to Ayers, and what an unrepentant domestic terrorist and SOB Ayers is. But that message is going to come up against a media that is hostile, determined to downplay the ties and/or willing to lie. (What the heck got into CNN lately? The past few weeks, they're getting things 180 degrees flat wrong, again and again, about easily verifiable facts and the mistakes always benefit Obama. When all the mistakes point in the same direction, one suspects they're not really mistakes.)

No, not really mistakes.  When people feel they're possessed of a higher truth, they're willing to play many games with the lower truths.   

So the McCain campaign must run alone in this last month before the election.  Just ignore the press.  Speak over its head.

But how?  There's a limit to money. 

Tomorrow night, McCain debates Obama.  The gloves must come off.  He must make Obama the subject of the campaign - the Obama we don't know.  He must completely ignore press criticism, and even go after the press in speeches, citing, by name, some particularly outrageous examples of bias.

I've suggested before, and will again, that McCain and Palin run a whistlestop campaign across the country, even inviting voters to come aboard at stops, and meet the candidates.

This last month will have to be retail politics at its best.  Eliminate the middle man, the biased media.  It can be done.  Truman did it.  Reagan did it.  The press didn't hate Reagan, but reporters privately laughed at him.  The public didn't.

Golda Meir, the late prime minister of Israel, was once asked about press criticism of Israel's defense moves, which often involved military strikes.  Didn't the criticism bother her?  She replied, "I'd rather have a bad editorial than a good obituary."

McCain must start thinking in those terms.  Don't worry about press hatred.  Relish it.  Bill Kristol today quotes Sarah Palin this way:

I asked at the end of our conversation whether Palin, fresh off her own debate, had any advice for McCain. “I’m going to tell him the same thing he told me. I talked to him just a few minutes before I walked out there on stage. And he just said: ‘Have fun. Be yourself, and have fun.’ And Senator McCain can do the same.” She paused, and I was about to thank her for the interview, but she had one more thing to say. “Only maybe I’d add just a couple more words, and that would be: ‘Take the gloves off.’ ”

Senator McCain, she's the best man you've got.  Listen to her.

October 6, 2008.