Prometheus 6

Poor McCain...surrounded by reporters he hasn't has the time to schmooze into submission...

McCain started out with the same sort of kibitzing campaign style that he used to woo the press back in 2000. It didn’t work. This time there were too many cameras around and too many 25-year-old reporters and producers seizing on every odd comment to set off little blog scandals.

his personal ambiance incapable of substituting for thoughtful responses...

McCain started out with the same sort of improvised campaign events he’d used his entire career, in which he’d begin by riffing off of whatever stories were in the paper that day. It didn’t work. The campaign lacked focus. No message was consistent enough to penetrate through the national clutter.

humiliated by a tour through Black districts that drew only white people, failing to understand the lack of coverage was a favor...

McCain started his general-election campaign in poverty-stricken areas of the South and Midwest. He went through towns where most Republicans fear to tread and said things most wouldn’t say. It didn’t work. The poverty tour got very little coverage on the network news.

he is forced into change HE can believe in...

McCain and his advisers have been compelled to adjust to the hostile environment around them. They have been compelled, at least in their telling, to abandon the campaign they had hoped to run. Now they are running a much more conventional race, the kind McCain himself used to ridicule....

Some old McCain hands are dismayed. John Weaver, the former staff member who helped run the old McCain operation, argues that this campaign does not do justice to the man. The current advisers say they have no choice. They didn’t choose the circumstances of this race. Their job is to cope with them. 

to use the dog whistle because directly stating what he implies is too offensive.

Since John speaks in code nowadays, it might be useful to look at what he does as well as what he says.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek3jAkx9m10