I basically agree with Ramesh’s take on media bias and McCain and Obama, but I’d add one more variable to the mix. I think Obama has an ego problem. Indeed, I think the charge that he has an arrogance problem is close to conventional wisdom. Well, I think one of the main reasons he has such an inflated sense of himself is that he reads — and believes — his press clippings. Obviously, his campaign staffers are going to be flatterers. And, of course his adoring crowds are going to shriek what he wants to hear. He lives in a bubble, and pretty much his only source of outside feedback are the press and the polls. The press keeps telling him that he’s hitting home runs. They send him the signal that his answers are plausible, even compelling. His speeches, according to the New York Times et al. are distillations of pure wisdom and inspiration. No wonder he thinks he’s such a big deal. If I were Obama, I’d care less about the New York Times — which has a grand history of moving few voters — and spend more time watching, say, Fox News. Proof that I might be right is that other source of feedback, the polls, which suggest that one of the greatest media coronations in history has done almost nothing to move ahead with the voters, even though this should be the mother of all Democratic years.