McCain's new populist tone

McCain has been taking a lot of flak from the newsmedia and Democrats recently for his new populist intoned speeches and positions. Skeptical reporters have been going after him pretty hard for changing his positions on government regulation and mock his supposed "man of the people" tone, especially in the face of his virtual blackout to the press, which the McCain campaign regulated hoping to discipline their message, which was a smart play at first, and got their struggling campaign back on it's feet, but McCain's once forgiving press coverage is now almost overtly hostile, angering conservatives who already loathe the mainstream media for it's supposed liberal tilt. I don't neccessarily think the press is biased towards McCain, I just think their feelings are just hurt, and the Mac they knew is not the Mac they know now.
But that's another story entirely.
I think McCain's new fight the power message is a great idea and it's perhaps the only thing that can pull him ahead of Obama, who has been focused on the economy a lot longer than McCain has been, and he's laid out a lot of policy on the economy over the summer, while McCain has spent most of the election trying to focus on national security, as that is perceived by people to be his strength.
If America was facing a major national security crisis, much like it's facing an economic crisis, then we would probably see Obama's numbers tanking and it would be the end of his chances for victory in Novemeber. The fact that McCain hasn't fallen off of the cliff in the face of all of this economic uncertainty shows he's still got some fight in him and maybe a good chance to see this through, however, I think the democrats have succeeded in framing the tumbling economy as 150% the fault of Republicans and George Bush, and that may be some hard static for McCain to fight through.
His numbers are good in some key states, and places like Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania have been seeing some competitive numbers for McCain, showing that his new image as a populist pugilist ready to kick out the greedy fat cats that caused this whole mess and fix the nations woes with one solid single stroke may be going over with weary Reagan Democrats still not totally ready to align with Obama. If McCain is going to win, it's going to be here, in the rustbelt midwest, this is always the region hit hardest by economic woes, (they don't call it the "rustbelt" for nothing.) All McCain needs is just two of those states I just mentioned and it's over for Obama, and the democrats can start threatening to move to Canada again.
Obama's numbers are getting stronger in the mountain west, but the election will be decided, again, in the heart of America's blue collar, working class, midwest. Whoever get's these voters get's the white house.