So videos will continue to portray Obama as a fellow traveler of Louis Farrakhan, even though the candidate has denounced the firebrand minister. And McCain will be accused a thousand times over of pining for a 100-year war in Iraq, when he actually said he could see keeping military bases for that long, but only in a stabilized country.


So how do McCain & Co. get into the YouTube game?

Woefully behind in support from young people, Hollywood luminaries and Web activists, it seems a little hopeless.

But the Republican standard-bearer might get himself a YouTube toehold by taking a page from Mike Huckabee.

The former Arkansas governor reached into his (admittedly shallow) pool of Hollywood supporters and fished out . . . Chuck Norris. The tough guy and the wisecracking pol teamed in an irony-drenched ad. (Huckabee staring earnestly from the screen: "My plan to secure the border? Two words: Chuck Norris.") That one spot was a bigger hit (2 million views) than anything McCain has produced.

For similar results, it may be time for McCain to play his own, less-menacing Hollywood ace: Wilford Brimley.

Yes, it's been years since the portly, walrus-mustachioed actor appeared in "Cocoon." But he's got those Quaker Oats ads and that stolid, old-man cool. And, yes, Brimley supports John McCain.

A few years ago, someone took a TV spot of Brimley hawking a diabetes test kit, set it to a dance groove and dredged up 736,000 viewers.

Now he's got a presidential candidate to sell. How hard can this stuff be?

james.rainey@latimes.com

James Rainey will keep watch on how the media, old and new, cover the election. This is his first On the Media column.