Who will benefit from the media backlash against McCain?

So it's only 8 weeks until election day, and as is typical in the fall right before the first Tuesday in November, the campaign has gotten nasty, McCain's campaign has seemed to not care that almost every elite media outlet and fairness website in the country, as well as television newscasts, has decried their new ads and campaign tactics as shameful at best and blatantly false at worst.
Democrats and the media have pounded McCain for the past week for the campaign's brutally negative tactics, and it's likely these attacks will simply amplify over the next week, which in turn may just cause Republicans to get even more nasty in their ads, as the conservative base relishes a fight with the media every chance they get, especially when their new superhero, Sarah Palin, has been the basis for many of these attacks.
Whether Palin deserves this roughshod treatment is another debate entirely, but with all of these factors to calculate, who will come out the winner when the dust has cleared?
Although Obama's numbers have slipped, he hasn't completely gone over the cliff, the race still remains mostly tied, with McCain holding roughly a 2% lead nationwide, and Obama remaing competitive in many key states. Obama's base has not deserted him, however, and his support among women and working class democrats has held, and his voter registration efforts continue in full swing. His decline seems mostly to be shifting from independents and white men, although it's his drop in support from Independents that would be most alarming to their campaign, as Obama has held an edge amongst Independents for most of the race. He's seen roughly an 8 point shift amongst those who identify with neither party, and these are usually the people who decide elections. If there's any light for Obama here though, it's that the American people, especially Independents, have long been weary of negative attacks, brutal mudslinging, and lies within a campaign, and McCain may see his own losses amongst this group soon, and by shoring up his base and igniting conservatives nationwide, McCain may have lost his moderate, maverick appeal that drew many independents to his campaign, independents that may be weary of Bush conservatism and religious fundamentalism at the top ranks of American politics.
But.
John McCain's advisors are not stupid, they know negative ads do their job, and the average American voter is not going to go online and research every point brought up in a campaign advertisement to check it for facts, and they may just take a candidate, especially one they may be leaning towards, at their word. If the negative, factually inaccurate ads didn't work, then the campaign wouldn't spend millions of dollars airing them all over the country. John McCain has also been able to play victim and villain extremely well, while hitting his opponent with a folding chair while the ref isn't watching and then crying foul when he is, they've put the Obama campaign in a very hard spot, especially when dealing with Sarah Palin, who they've cast brilliantly as both the attack dog role, and the wounded puppy. She is the victim of both a liberal slime operation, and a sexist media machine, the McCain campaign feeding these talking points at every turn, desperately trying to court disaffected supporters of Hillary Clinton, the Republicans even have to swallow their pride for the moment and watch as Sarah Palin and John McCain praise Senator Clinton, when just 6 months ago she was public enemy number one.
So my guess is we won't know until at least another week, but I see this one going into extra innings.