Just four recent examples of why McCain calls the media his “base:”

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=5D3BD52C-3048-5C12-006CDB53E3EDBB01
McCain will rely on free media to an unprecedented degree to get out his message in a fashion that aims to not only minimize his financial disadvantage but also drive a triangulated contrast among himself, the Democratic nominee and President Bush.

The Hill’s A.B. Stoddard: “I think that if Barack Obama had confused Sunni and Shia, Al Qaeda, et cetera, it would have been a disaster. He would have been Mr. Green, wet behind the ears, can’t find his way around.” She added, “If Hillary Clinton had done so, it would have been, ‘Oh, that poor first lady. She’s just trying so hard to pretend that she could be president, but it’s not going to work.’ I think the problem for John McCain is that we assume that he knows his stuff, that he’s Mr. National Security, so we say, ‘It couldn’t be an indication of his ignorance. He must be tired.’ ”
[…]
PolitiFact.com — a website operated by the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly claiming “to help voters separate fact from falsehood in the 2008 presidential campaign” — seemed to apologize for having to correct McCain: “We’re not trying to pile on to Sen. John McCain over his misstatement on the link between Iran and al-Qaida. Maybe he was confused just for a moment. He did correct himself quickly.”
{…}
And CNBC’s John Harwood asserted: “I think that at the end of the day, John McCain has got sufficient credibility on that issue that people are not going to look at that and say, ‘Oh, John McCain’s confused’ or ‘John McCain’s too old’ or ‘John McCain doesn’t get it.’ … But he obviously can’t do that too many times or he’s got a problem.”

And, as always, the media follows along exactly the same path. When it looked to them as though Hillary would win, the media hated her and was largely deferential to Obama. Now, the reverse is true. As Thomas Edsall wrote last week: “In a blink of an eye, the media has jumped ship from the Obama campaign and become a crucial Clinton ally.” One can trace the media’s complete reversal regarding Obama to exactly the moment when it appeared he would actually win.