Will the NY Times “story” be what McCain needs to bring conservatives around to his corner

John McCain has been working hard over the last few months to bring conservatives around to his corner.  To date McCain has had mixed results.  While many of the elected official conservatives have come around to McCain, many of the grassroots activists have not.

One thing those grassroots activists can agree on is distrust for the print media, especially the New York Times.  So when the NY Times writes a story that hints at many allegations, but never makes any actual allegations, conservatives become skeptical.  Then when you add on the allegations come former disgruntled employees and are all unnamed sources the conservatives seem to cringe even more.   

Today will be an interesting day for the grassroots conservatives and their leaders such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.  Will they turn on McCain and say where there is smoke there is fire or will they start to rally for McCain with the defense of if the NY Times uses this type of shoddy reporting to attack McCain, he can’t be that bad.  It will also be interesting to watch the local conservative blogs in Arizona to see their reaction.  Most of those blogs have been very critical of McCain for years.  This may very well turn out to be the moment in the McCain campaign where the conservative leaders and bloggers rally to his defense.