Lots of people are linking to this piece by New York magazine's John Heilemann, which takes a crack at explaining how exactly McCain squandered his "maverick" brand.

Heliemann's basic point is that McCain's repeated campaign stunts, his choice of Sarah Palin, and his dishonest adver-sleazements conspired to produce a kind of tipping-point for the press. The media went into revolt and painted the suspension stunt for the ruse it was, hurting McCain on the most important issue right now: The economic crisis.

"By the time the financial crisis hit, we were past the tipping point," one national reporter explains to Heilemann. "Lipstick on a pig and sex ed were the last straw for some of McCain's old hands and media allies. And because of this cynicism, he didn't get the benefit of the doubt for his 'suspension,' and it was treated as the stunt it was."

Heilemann makes some solid points. But his analysis overlooks two other important factors -- ones that will in retrospect be viewed as critical should Obama win.

Robust Infrastructure On The Left

The first is the now-robust infrastructure on the left, on the internet and elsewhere, that immediately seized on the nonstop lying and adver-sleazements in order to build a counter-narrative about McCain, one in which he was betraying his own reputation as a "maverick," a rep that was never really deserved in the first place.

A subplot of that counter-narrative, pushed hard by this developing infrastructure, was the emerging evidence of Palin's comical levels of incompetence and outright fraudulence, which fed the larger storyline about McCain's cynicism.

There's little question that the development of this counter-narrative influenced mainstream media coverage. It was a key reason the traditional news orgs covered McCain's mendacity, his choice of Palin, and his suspension ruse with a level of skepticism that McCain has never faced -- one that left his campaign flat-footed.

Economic Crisis, In Addition To McCain's Antics, Pushed Press Over Edge

The second key factor is the impact of the economic crisis itself. The McCain campaign's driving assumption was that the race would be decided on biography and character. McCain released a barrage of "celeb" sneer spots and didn't discuss the economy in any meaningful sense even as Obama continued to bank credibility on pocketbook issues by addressing the economic concerns of ordinary Americans.

When the crisis hit, it riveted the attention of opinion-makers and the general public on what each candidate was promising to actually do about the economy. The crisis also demanded a level of seriousness completely out of sync with McCain's previous POW-POW-POW-ing and "celeb" sneering. The crisis itself, as much as McCain's constant frivolity, is what left the press unwilling to cut McCain's political antics any more slack.

The crisis also forced McCain to suddenly wrench himself into a populist posture -- a transformation so ridiculous given his previous statements and pro-deregulatory past that it colored everything that followed. Obama then performed solidly amid the skirmishing in Congress. This, combined with the public's preference for Obama's economic solutions over McCain's, ensured that McCain's higher "preparedness" numbers didn't lead voters to see him as best prepared to manage the crisis.

It's the basic disconnect at the heart of McCain's claim to being the right candidate to take control of the economy that is really driving him down. In short, McCain lost his "maverick" brand because on the driving issue of the campaign, he isn't a maverick, and never really was. And thanks to media coverage pulled towards skepticism by the liberal counter-narrative -- not to mention the crisis itself -- voters know it.