'Tire swinging' - the way to look at campaign reporting

TPM explains the origin of the term, what it evolved to mean, and who in the U.S. punditocracy is on the tire, who is off for good and who's off but yearns to get back on:

Meghan McCain: "It was a really fun experience.... Everybody really relaxed. It was fun to kind of see big journalistic figures, like Holly Baily swinging on the tire swing and Jon Martin helping my dad grill ribs."