Will Gloves Come Off When McCain Faces Letterman?

Presidential candidate John McCain gets his second on-air grilling this week when he has his makeup date with David Letterman tonight, a day after debating Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

TV industry navel-gazers are anticipating big numbers for Letterman, who for the past three weeks has knocked himself out ginning up a feud with McCain.

It all started last month when the GOP candidate backed out of an appearance on the show, telling the late-night host personally that the economy was in such a state of crisis that he was suspending his political campaign and had to rush back to Washington. Only McCain, who had announced his candidacy on "The Late Show" way back when, did not, in fact, rush back to the capital. Instead he rushed over to the "CBS Evening News" studio to be interviewed by Katie Couric, then stayed the night in Manhattan and spoke at a conference there the next day.

Letterman, a wily old guy, smelled ratings and declared war.

Feud-ginning is a time-honored talk-show tradition, sometimes generating huge ratings spikes. Letterman already has enjoyed a ratings boost of sorts when word of McCain's cancellation got out, but his CBS show's numbers settled back down. As they went down, the aggression went up.

That first night, when McCain canceled, Letterman threw up the CBS in-house video feed showing the senator from Arizona getting his makeup touched up pre-Couric chat.

"Now he doesn't seem to be racing back to the airport, does he?" Letterman sneered to his fill-in guest, Keith Olbermann. "I wonder if he'll mention me. Hey, John! I've got a question -- you need a ride to the airport?"

By last week, Letterman was noting after watching the second presidential debate: "I like John McCain, but wandering around onstage there, he looked like a retiree who couldn't find his Buick."

This week, Letterman has been dishing it out with a shovel.

There have been the top-10 list of Ways John McCain Can Turn It Around, and the monologues:

"John McCain says he's going to win . . . the third presidential debate. Of course, he also told Custer the surge was working."

"John McCain is going to take this opportunity to unveil his new campaign personality, to really energize the last couple of weeks of the campaign: Fighting Underdog. . . . And if that doesn't work, then he's going to go to Sadistic Yard Bull. . . . And then Priest Who Tries to Communicate with Martians. . . . And then the Archaeologist Who Scoffs at the Mummy's Curse."