DENVER, CO — While John McCain’s campaign has put a bull’s eye on the media for what it feels is unfair and slanted coverage, the Republican nominee tonight said even media bashing has its limits.

At his town hall in downtown Denver Thursday McCain supporter, Katie Everett, asked the candidate how he plans to deal with a media she accused of “killing” the real estate and automotive industries.

“What do we do about the media?” she asked to cheers from the crowd.

“You know I do believe there are many occasions where the nature of the media is to exaggerate things and perhaps not be as accurate as we would like them to be…but let me say very seriously I think that one of the biggest causes of this was not so much the media, in fact I don’t think the media was responsible for what happened at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae,” McCain said.

His campaign has actively criticized a number of media organizations, including the New York Times and NBC News for what it feels is anti-Palin coverage, “gotcha questions,” and being “in the tank” for the Obama campaign, among other things.

“I love to bash the media all the time but the point is…the beginning of this crisis was such a corrupt system in Washington…that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac basically got completely out of control,” he added.

She’s been taking a lot of heat lately for her performance in interviews with the likes of ABC’s Charlie Gibson and CBS’s Katie Couric, but she was infinitely stronger tonight.

Why? Palin blames the press.

“I like being able to answer tough questions without the filter of the mainstream media telling the American people what they just heard,” she said in her closing.

The Obama campaign says they were expecting her to be good - but top strategist David Axelrod told reporters she was nothing more than a “folksy John McCain” and didn’t answer the tough questions. The campaign’s spin continues to be that she’s more of the same Bush and McCain.

SCRANTON, PA — While most McCain town hall attendees traditionally direct their questions or commentary towards the GOP nominee during the campaign events as the press take notes, one audience member decided to take her message directly to the media today.

After praising his choice of Sarah Palin as a runningmate, one female audience member turned around towards the press seated in the back of the room and went on a diatribe about what she feels is biased coverage.

“I also want to take the opportunity to ask the media, where is your 30 investigators over in Chicago looking at (Tony Rezko and William Ayers)?,” she said to cheers. “We want the media to start doing their job and stop pickin’ on little children because of their age and their pregnancies. Shame on you! Shame on all of ya’s!”

McCain smiled as the women delivered the rebuke to the press corps, adding “That is a great question!”

He also assured the audience that Palin is able to handle the scrutiny.

“One thing I want to assure you of is that Gov Palin, she can take it. She can take it. That’s what I want to assure you of,” he added.

SAN DIEGO - Sen. McCain took the fight to a new opponent Monday, the “cable monster.”

“Americans have expressed their frustration with the sound bites, the charges back and forth, the cable monster that has to have a news story every hour, the sound bites and the surrogates and all that,” McCain said, taking a slight detour from his prepared speech before the National Council of La Raza–which focused mostly on the economy and immigration.

The presumptive GOP nominee rebuked what some analysts have termed the “A.D.D. election” during his speech, renewing his pitch for Sen. Obama to join him at town hall meetings and allow voters to see a debate on the key issues instead of relying on the sound bite picked out by the press.

“I think Americans deserve better. I think Americans deserve a side-by-side appearance of both of us,” he added, even though McCain has also recently acknowledged that the prospect of joint town halls is essentially zero after what he sees as a lackluster response from the Obama campaign.

In attacking the 24-7 media environment, McCain is also partly pushing back on recent criticism he has faced for being “off message.” A number of media outlets ran stories at the end of last week arguing that his intended message on the economy was overshadowed by misstatements made by the candidate and his surrogates on birth control, social security and Iran, among others.

Though most of those gaffes were short snacks for the hungry ‘cable monster’ and are likely to have little long-term impact, former Sen. Phil Gramm, a leading McCain economic adviser, served up a three-course meal when he referred to the economic woes as a “mental recession” and called Americans “whiners.” The campaign had to schedule an impromptu press conference on Thursday where McCain forcefully rebuked Gramm as out of touch with voters and his message.

The Arizona Senator made a veiled reference to the incident today when he added that voters don’t pay attention to “surrogate” gaffes that are played repeatedly on the 24-hour networks.

“Times are tough…and Americans don’t want to hear the sound bite, they don’t want to hear the misstatement, they don’t want to hear the surrogate who may have made a mistake. They want to know about us,” McCain added.

News outlets, including FOX News, spend thousands of dollars a day just to travel reporters on a presidential campaign. Flights on a presidential charter can cost as much as $4,000 a leg per person, often with numerous flights a day. For the fare, reporters not only get the convenience of being able to cover all of the candidate’s events, but are also afforded some degree of access to the candidate and his staff.

Which is just one of the many reasons why Obama’s traveling press corps was downright frustrated when, after a rally in Northern Virginia, the campaign jet’s pilot announced we were ready for takeoff from Washington’s Dulles airport - without one passenger Barack Obama. The candidate, his national trip director, and body man, we were told, would return to Chicago on a separate jet.

As the Obama-less plane was set to taxi, Communications Director Robert Gibbs informed reporters that since the likely Democratic nominee won’t be in DC for awhile, he had scheduled meetings in the city. When asked the obvious - if he was meeting with Senator Clinton - Gibbs declined to discuss Obama’s plans and promptly retreated to the front of the cabin for takeoff.

Reporters furiously typed emails and made phone calls to inform colleagues of the development as the plane lumbered to and down the runway. Minutes later, we were airborne and without answers.

During the hour and a half flight, Gibbs attempted to placate the agitated press corps, but mostly repeated the line: “He had some time for meetings that he wanted to do, so we scheduled some meetings for him tonight and he’ll fly back to Chicago a couple hours after we do.” Gibbs would not discuss the location, nature, or participants of the meetings because “the meetings are private.”

One reporter wondered why we didn’t just wait for him on the tarmac. What was the rationale for leaving? “For us to get back to Chicago,” Gibbs responded.

“For your benefit?” someone enquired. “Not necessarily for my benefit,” Gibbs said with a laugh.

“Who needs to get back to Chicago? We need to be where the candidate is,” a reporter shot back.

As cameras and voice recorders rolled, Gibbs fielded questions from about a dozen reporters, each of whom questioned why there was a deviation from Standard Operating Procedure.

One veteran campaign reporter scolded, “Right now it is a general election – they’re treated the same way the president is. If the president goes bike riding, we go with him. If he goes out to dinner or goes to visit a friend three blocks up the road, we go with him in the motorcade, and that’s the expectation in the general election, and that’s the way with previous candidates…that’s the way it’s done. So why are we diverging from that?” she asked. “We would have been happy to sit on the runway. We didn’t have anything better to do other than to do what we’re paying for, which is to cover the candidate and he’s not here.”

Trying to defuse the situation, Gibbs asked that we write our grievances down and email him. “I understand your objections, and I will make sure that everyone is aware of that,” he said, while making the point that “it wasn’t an attempt to deceive in any way; it’s just private meetings.”

When the plane landed, reporters stranded in the air began receiving word that the meeting had in fact occurred. Gibbs wandered back to issue a statement:

done

Hours later when the candidate returned to his Hyde Park home, he was greeted by camera crews and reporters staking out his home. After all, privacy is hard to come by when you’re running for president.

done

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — While he is typically more accessible to the press than his rivals on the campaign trail, Sen. McCain said Wednesday that his fundraisers will remain closed to the media.

“It’s because the people who are…raising the money request that. And I will continue to be accessible, and the most accessible campaign in history to the media,” McCain told reporters today, but not before bringing up Obama’s infamous “bitter” comments, which the Democrat originally uttered at a private fundraiser of his own. “I’d also like to say I do not say in my, during fundraisers comments like the people in Pennsylvania being bitter and angry and turn against their religion and the Constitution because of their economic conditions. I say the same thing in fundraisers and closed events as I do in open events.”

But Bloomberg’s Hans Nichols pushed for proof of this consistent message asking, “are we just supposed to take your word for it?”

“If you want to. If you want to. You don’t have to,” McCain shot back.

The presumptive Republican nominee’s fundraisers have come under increased scrutiny after he held a private event with President Bush Tuesday, where both men reportedly spoke to attendees. While McCain often offers reporters hours more of Q and A time each week compared to his opponents, he keeps all fundraisers off limits while Sens. Obama and Clinton both allow a representative from the media to cover money events at public venues.

Barack Obama today took questions from the media following a town hall meeting in Monaca, Pennsylvania. The purpose was for Obama to talk about the economy and respond to Senator Clinton’s speech today on the Iraq war.

When faced with multiple questions about his relationship with his former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama assured the assembled press corps that he would address our questions at a speech tomorrow in Philadelphia.

“I am going to be talking about, not just Rev. Wright, but just the larger issue of race in this campaign, which has ramped up over the last couple of weeks. So I don’t want to give a full preview – you might not come to the speech,” he told reporters.

The speech, billed as a “major address on race, politics, and unifying our country,” is still being written by speechwriters and the senator himself, who considers this speech to be very personal, per a senior staffer. While he will discuss Wright, the speech was not scheduled in direct response to the storyline per se, but because the issue of race has come up so prominently in the past few weeks, and during the course of the campaign.

At today’s media avail, the senator deferred several questions on Wright to the speech, at one point noting tomorrow’s event will be “a lot more fulsome than a press conference.” He added, “Does that make sense?”

But Obama did allow a small glimpse into his thoughts, saying, “I think the caricature that’s been painted of [Wright] is not accurate. And so part of what I’ll do tomorrow is just to talk a little bit about how some of these issues are perceived from within the black church community, for example, which I think views this very differently,” he said. Trinity Church issued a statement yesterday saying Wright’s character was being “assassinated” by the media.

The only other question he fielded on the subject was when asked how the story has impacted his campaign. “You guys are in a better position to assess that than I am,” he replied.

Watch the exchange with reporters here:

done

Senator Barack Obama took 9 questions at a hastily arranged press availability today in San Antonio. The campaign squeezed the avail into the candidate’s schedule, despite the fact that he was running behind schedule. The last media avail took place on Thursday - nearly an eternity in campaign time (Keep in mind, Hillary Clinton has held two media availabilities since yesterday).

The 15 1/2 minute press avail began with a question about Austan Goolsbee, the Obama economic advisor who reportedly told someone in the Canadian government that Obama’s anti-NAFTA campaign rhetoric is just political speak. Campaign Manager David Plouffe told reporters earlier in the day that Goolsbee attended the meeting not as a representative of the campaign, but as a visiting professor from the University of Chicago. In interviews, Obama had previously denied that “it happened,” and so he was asked by a reporter today to clarify what happened.The second topic du jour was about Obama’s relationship with Tony Rezko, an Obama contributor whose federal corruption trial began today in Chicago. A fair number of Chicago reporters headed south to San Antonio to question Obama on fundraisers held by Rezko, who was in attendance, and on Obama’s transparency on the issue.

Watch Obama field questions on these topics below:

done

After Communications Director Robert Gibbs called “last question,” the room of reporters brimming with questions yelled out in unison. Obama, who was walking out of the room turned and grinned. “Wait, wait guys - come on now! I just answered like 8 questions,” he said. He stood and looked out at the group of reporters and said, “We’re running late,” as he departed the noisy room.

done

done

Sarasota, FL — As he makes his final 72-hour push in the Sunshine State, Rudy Giuliani is embracing his underdog status and asking voters to ignore the “experts” and the latest polls showing a slide in Florida.

“Don’t listen to any of the cynics. Don’t listen to any of the experts. You’re the experts. The person who goes to the polling place and marks down the ballot, marks down the vote. That’s the expert,” he told about 200 attendees at a meet and greet at the Columbia Restaurant in Sarasota. “I like feeling like I am an underdog. I think underdogs get a lot of sympathy, get a lot of support, get a lot of interest.”

done

In recent days, his campaign surrogates have also been railing against the media and pundits for their “pessimism.” Prior to Giuliani’s speech at Sarasota’s Lincoln Day Dinner Friday night, FL Attorney General Bill McCollum and former Congressman Bill Paxon both urged the more than 500 attendees at the gathering to ignore the latest polling.

The Giuliani campaign’s war on polls is a recent development, especially after months of religiously citing national and state surveys as evidence of his support. During interviews during the last couple months, Giuliani would often cite his polling leads (which have mostly evaporated) in most Feb 5 states when questioned about ignoring the early primary states.

The same is true for his aides. Back in an October 2 memo that broke down all of Giuliani’s polling advantages, campaign strategist Brent Seaborn led off by noting that “Mayor Giuliani continues to lead all major media polls.” He also touted, “as this race enters the home stretch, Mayor Giuliani continues lead every national poll while no single opponent has emerged to threaten his frontrunner status,” arguing that he expected one other candidate to emerge at Giuliani’s chief rival. As recently as December 31, Seaborn released a memo titled “Looking Good” noting that “Mayor Giuliani has enjoyed a commanding lead in nearly every public poll conducted in the delegate rich states of Florida, California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey.” While Seaborn warned of “tightening,” Giuliani’s now trails in almost all of those states only three weeks later.

At a press availability following a town hall meeting in Kingstree, South Carolina, Senator Barack Obama took questions from his traveling press corps – not exactly a regular occurrence on the Obama bus. “I know that during the scramble on the campaign trail, we don’t always have a chance to do as much Q&A as you guys would like,” Obama noted at the start of the news conference. Obama spoke briefly about the economic stimulus agreement between Republicans and Democrats and spoke about the situation in Kenya before opening it up to questions.

The candidate took questions for just under twenty minutes, including the multiple interruptions from the PA system in the high school where Obama spoke. At one point Obama joked, “I think I’m getting called to the principal’s office.”

During the avail, a reporter, referring to past comments made by former president Bill Clinton, wondered if Obama thought he was was getting a “free ride” from the press. Here’s his answer:

done

Free ride or not, most of the questions Obama got today were regarding the Clintons. When asked if he thought he had underestimated the “Clinton Machine,” Obama said no. “The Clinton operation is a tough, well-honed political machine built up over the course of 20 years. We have always been the underdogs in this campaign; we have always been the outsiders, the insurgent campaign. People have forgotten that I think. ”

A reporter from the New York Times questioned what he meant when he said in last week’s debate that he felt like he was running against both Clintons, Obama answered, “Let me sort of dispose of the, the whole issue of President Clinton. I have said this repeatedly, that he is entirely justified in wanting to promote his wife’s candidacy. I have no problem with that whatsoever. He can be as vigorous an advocate on behalf of her as he would like. The only thing I’ve been concerned about is when he makes misstatements about my record. That’s what I’m seeking to correct. And I do hold the Clinton campaign, as a whole, accountable for statements that are made by such high-profile surrogates as the candidate’s husband, who also happens to be the former President of the United States of America. I don’t think you can distance yourself from comments that he made.”

And after Obama answered what was deemed as Communications Director Robert Gibbs’ last question, someone yelled out, “Do you think Bill Clinton is coming unglued?”

Obama kept walking - smiled, gestured to Gibbs, and said, “I think he said last question.”