The popular opinion among mainstream media types seems to be that sports bloggers are idiotic scum who live in the basements of their respective mothers.

But U.S. Senator and Republican presidential nominee-to-be John McCain is not one of those people. In fact, he may be trying to talk with as many sports bloggers as he can in the coming months.

From Stephen Dinan at WASHINGTONTIMES.COM, brought to us via Michael Rand over at RANDBALL:

Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign is trying to tap a new audience of potential voters by taking his campaign message straight to liberal and nonpolitical issues-based blogs, which reach millions of readers but don’t often delve into conservative politics…

“The plan is to take the work we’ve already built on with conservative bloggers and to open up a dialogue with non-conservative bloggers and even nonpolitical bloggers,” said Patrick Hynes, Mr. McCain’s point man for blog outreach.

Going forward, Mr. Hynes said, the campaign would like to have Mr. McCain talk to sports bloggers, too, as a way to “humanize John McCain as something other than a carbon-copy politician running for office, delivering talking points.”

This courting of unconventional media is amusing and amazing. It’s not that the road to the White House runs through Blogfrica, but getting one’s candidacy out in that human way, like Bill Clinton did when he played the sax on late night television in his 1992 bid, is just smart campaigning.

Speaking personally, I’d love nothing more than to spend ten minutes on a conference call with the senator and pick his brain for a while. Where does he stand on China? The Shaquille O’Neal trade? Is Megan Fox hotter than Jessica Alba? These are the things voters have to know.