After the third debate, I heard a couple of pundits on CNN and ABC point specifically to the Obama organizational edge, or in the common parlance, his ‘ground game’, as the insurmountable factor in this contest. Numerous polls indicated Obama was perceived as the debate winner by 57% or more, consistently.

Yet, ever since the Reagan era, I’ve been aware that a halfway decent anecdote can wield more influence than those initial impressions. So I decided initially not to post about ‘Joe The Plumber’, as I considered him a distraction that would only play into McCain’s hands.

As it turns out, the anecdote provided plenty to discredit JTP’s concerns. Not only isn’t he going to pay more taxes, but he’s not operating legally as an unlicensed plumber. In many states, he’d face thousands of dollars in fines for that. He also owes the state of Ohio nearly $1,200 in back taxes and the state has placed a lien on him. Additionally, he hates Social Security, placing him well outside the mainstream. So now I’m not so concerned about giving the anecdote coverage.

It appears that McCain is putting his faith in misinformed voters who prefer to operate without regulation or rule of law, with little regard for the greatest poverty alleviating program in US history that remains the principal source of sustenance for tens of millions of retirees. I’m not surprised. You see, JTP’s a maverick. Not a pioneer nor innovator, nor even a real rebel. Even though he says he doesn’t want the government to parent him, he looks to the choice of president as the answer provider to his want.

Though maverick’s a term that’s been romanticized, most of the time it merely defines a disagreeable self-centered person.

The real stories in the waning days of this campaign are not about mavericks but about people cooperating and coordinating the effort to get Obama elected. Al Giordano, who’s one of a very few regularly covering those organizers furthers that narrative while seeking to make contact with that enormous group to document their roles in this precedent-setting election.

DDay, at Hullabaloo, raps the media for buying into the JTP narrative while ignoring the troubles afflicting the majority of Americans:

But indeed you could have chosen any topic that the vast majority of Americans interface with. Their wages haven’t gone up, their gas prices are still twice as much as they were before, their food costs are higher, the student loans for their children are a crushing burden, the jobs are scarce and aren’t much more promising than service-sector McJobs, their credit cards are full, their home prices (if they’re lucky enough to own one) are falling and they owe more on their houses and cars than they’re worth, and their quality of life, between commutes, carrying two or three jobs to get by, etc., is, to put it mildly, in the crapper. They aren’t making it. The American dream that’s been sold to them for decades is dead. And it’s been that way for a while.

And yet our profoundly stupid political discourse continues to focus on the aspirational class and small businessmen and the methods to trickle wealth down. And they use these insane shibboleths, icons that stand in for human beings who have actual struggles, to make it seem like there’s any respect left for the common man. The common man has been kicked. He’s been punched. He’s laying on the side of the road. And he doesn’t give a damn about someone screeching about a $900 tax increase.

The media’s barely covered that. They’ve reported that Americans are worried about the Wall Street meltdown, are planning to buy less and that they think the country’s headed in the wrong direction. But they’ve barely scratched the surface in defining what they’re already going through to survive, to make do, and what they’ve had to sacrifice. Those stories are a major factor in this election. And the sacrifices are likely to multiply exponentially in the next two or three years. That’s an enormous dynamic that will be a political game changer for many years to come.

The third big story getting short shrift is the old dynamic. McCain’s televised effort to take a last hack at winning the election sought a storybook comeback much like the one the Red Sox pulled off last night. But the media’s giving short shrift to the quiet subterfuge McCain’s resorted to via Olde Politick methodology behind the stage. The so-called Maverick is running a full-scale Rovian attack utilizing robocalls made up of innuendo and debunked accusation to advance fear and trigger emotional revulsion of Obama the person instead of sticking to the policy discussions he promises whenever he has face time.

The media covers the face, but neglects the mud being flung by John McCain’s other, bigger face.

So while one face of The Maverick capitalizes on a Joe named Sam operating on people’s pipes illegally, the media rides shotgun by failing to display the dirty, desperate game that reveals The Maverick to be nothing more than a Copycat.

Bloggers like Josh Marshall and Greg Sargent at TPM, and Steve Benen at Washington Monthly are churning out the details of that ugly ongoing reality and asking the questions the mainstream media should be asking.

Having been conditioned to seeing Democratic presidential aspirants lose close elections, many progressives worry that an October or November surprise awaits in the form of another Bin Laden effort or a stupid Republican ballot-bouncing trick. But the numbers and projections at FiveThirtyEight.com make it clear that’s a longshot.

And I’m predicting those numbers are too conservative because the Obama ground game defies all attempts to fully measure its full impact. Last week I said Virginia and Florida belonged to Obama, that North Carolina was likely to follow and that Obama was going to win at least 359 electoral votes. Now I’ll add that Arkansas and Indiana are very close to falling to Obama and that I now think he’ll harvest at least 369 EVs.

The media can ignore how New Politick and Real Politick are crushing Olde Politick. But don’t be surprised if Obama rolls up 369 or 385 or more EVs or pulls in 52% to 55% of the popular vote. And while the media stays busy after the results are in describing how it happened, you can also expect them to remain largely silent about their own coverage shortcomings. Very few of them have demonstrated Real Journalism even in the face of mounting evidence of a blowout win for Obama.

Maybe Sam The Plumber has a snake that can root out the fact constipation afflicting them. I kinda doubt it, but a guy’s gotta have a dream.