For those of you who don’t obsessively follow this campaign, here’s the short story. Two weeks back, McCain (melo)dramatically announced he was ‘suspending his campaign’ and skip the first debate to go to Washington and deal with the financial crisis. Obama, on the other hand, said this is the time the American people need to hear from us, and refused to suspend his campaign or call off the debate. McCain arrived in Washington, as did Obama, and the first deal collapsed. Not only were McCain and Obama not hugely helpful in wrangling their parties votes, but the media circus atmosphere could be said to be responsible for the first deal collapsing.

Furthermore, not one McCain office was closed for even a day. Ads didn’t come off the air. It was little more than a media stunt. And that’s when the public started really identifying Obama with calm, thoughtful rational leadership when it came to the economy, and their poll numbers started diverging after weeks of Palinmania. 

The one thing McCain did suspend? His interview, the night of the announcement, on Late Night with David Letterman. Which would have been fine—only, in the middle of his show, Dave cut to live video of McCain getting made up before a Couric interview only blocks away. Dave was genuinely put off, and next ensued two weeks of slams by Dave. Finally, a chastened McCain rescheduled and last night, he made his appearance, a couple weeks late, on Late Night.

Funny thing is, Dave (Jon Stewart style) actually gets to a lot of real issues that mainstream media, at pains to prove itself unbiased, doesn’t touch. Videos: