These two headlines tell the story: Obama raises $52 million in June and McCain gets a respectful hearing at the NAACP.

Obama is using new media to raise money from non-traditional donors and is reinventing the modern presidential campaign along the way. While it is too soon to say that Obama owns the Internet the way FDR owned the radio microphone and JFK the tv camera, history shows that the candidate who adapts to new media first generally wins.

Meanwhile, McCain plods along, re-running the Ford campaign. Does the NAACP even matter any more? You can see the wheels turning: well, we’re running against a black guy, so we need to reach out to black people. Who knows black people? Oh, the NAACP…

This cycle McCain should ignore the black vote. It typically goes 90 to 95% for the Democratic nominee. This year, the excitement of the first black Democratic nominee for president is too strong to counter. It may go 99% for Obama. Simply holding the line at 95% would require a Herculean effort on McCain’s part. Instead, McCain should go to Hispanics, Jews and any one else whose vote is truly up for grabs.

And when you want to talk to black people, why not reach them through organizations that still matter to them that are not inherently hostile to Republicans? The neighborhood church. The many black professional associations. The Eagles clubs (formed back when the Elks, Friars and others wouldn’t let blacks in, but still going strong today). If McCain’s team used some imagination in reaching new voters, those voters might actually think that the candidate cares enough about them to figure them out.

Instead, McCain is going through the motions–running like an old man on auto-pilot. If he doesn’t wake up soon, he will crash and serve out his retirement years in the senate telling us that no one could have beaten Obama. No one? Yes, that’s probably right. But someone can. McCain should figure how to be that someone.