Posted on 11/05/2008 7:58:38 AM PST by publius_in_abq
Let's begin the soul-searching. A month ago, I agreed with most pundits that McCain was the only candidate who had a chance to make this race close. I am beginning to doubt this now. McCain barely won his own state of AZ, and lost Iowa (due to ethanol subsidy opposition) and neighboring SW homestates of CO and NM, and barely won TX (12% spread!) and GA (5%). McCain also lost Ohio and FL soundly and was drubbed in PA.
I was deeply disappointed in Palin's debate with Biden (gave her a B-) and her interview with Couric was cringe-inducing (couldn't name a single magazine she reads, and over the course of weeks couldn't come up with one decent answer as to how living next to Russia gives her foreign policy experience). But I still don't think she was the drag on this ticket. She is inexperienced in terms of the national scene. But she was the fighter on the team, while McCain was less so. So I am still unsure...who was the drag on the ticket? Or would no one have fared better than these two against BO?
Bush...it’s all Bush.
A Conservative would have wiped the floor with this dummie.
Th only reason THIS Conservative voted for McCain WAS Sarah Palin.
Any exit poll tells you Bush lost the election.
Couric’s interview was made to look as bad as possible. O’s interviews are all cut looking nice, with few “uhs.”
McCain almost lost his own state. Palin easily carried hers.
McCain called himself the “true conservative” during the primaries. The reality was very different, and that didn’t resonate with either conservatives or liberals.
McCain lost it by being himself.
I think the biggest drag on the republicans this round was being outspent 7 to 1...let’s face it, money talks...especially in swing state ad campaigns.
It was pretty much unwinnable. The Dems were SO motivated. The problem really wasn’t Republican turnout being low, it was Dem turnout being tremendous. This is just a natural phenomenon, in my opinion. It will be less a question of soul searching than of just waiting for Obama and the Dem Congress to overstep their bounds and annoy the center of the electorate enough that it all swings back our way in 2 or 4 years.
I think Palin’s effect has been and can be very easily overstated in either direction. In the end people vote for the top of the ticket. Its rare for a VP candidate to be able to swing an election and she did not.
I think Bush was a gigantic drag. He made the odds tough. McCain also ran a poor campaign. He never settled on a message, he never settled on strategy, he wasn’t any good on the stump, and some of the choices he made in terms of where to visit and spend money made no sense. In a tough climate for an encumbant party you have to run a good campaign and Mac, bless his heart, didn’t.
The Obama camp had their act together. They ran a very focused and organized GOTV organization and kept on a consistent theme. Ground level politics won it for Bush and losing that battle lost it for McCain.
me too, sarah energized me and made me excited about the election....she was a great pick.
I think the drag started at the beginning when the Presidential candidate was chosen for us. Senator McCain seems like a very honorable man with an uphill to fight.
Enough of discussing all the wrong turns, how do we get where we want to go, we need directions.
“Bush...it’s all Bush.”
Essentially this is true. When many in the conservative movement stopped defending President Bush is when we lost this election.
The GOP. They never gave America someone to vote for (Americans don’t vote for the second-tier). All they did was arrange for someone who’s “time has come” to head the ticket. Think Bob Dole.
Sure, conservatives rallied around the ticket. But not because of McCain; because of Sarah Palin. We voted FOR her and AGAINST Obama. We did NOT vote for an inspiring candidate or inspirational policy positions.
“Th only reason THIS Conservative voted for McCain WAS Sarah Palin.”
Amen. I kept thinking, even if we “won” the Presidential election . . . it’s still McCain. The same old backstabbing, demo-hugging jerk he always was. I did vote for McCain, but I could easily picture another 4 years of a President who would bend over for Democrats - to make it easier for them to kick his ass.
Let’s not forget how we got here. The NYSlimes spent ten years creating the McCain candidacy. His ‘Maverick” BS was all him playing to them and they pumped him up for stabbing conservatives in the back. Now he and “His Friends” can get back to busines as usual while we, once again, have the knife in our backs. Not surprising that after the NYSlimes invested so heavily in creating a candidate ANY democrat could beat, surprise, surprise, one did.
I really like Sarah Palin, and I was able to muster some level of enthusiasm for the Republican ticket because of her. She is NOT the problem.
The failure of the Republicans this year is due, in large part, to nominating someone who, in the grand tradition of every Republican nominee since Ronald Reagan, has almost no command of the bully pulpit. John McCain is an extraordinarily honorable man who does not deserve most of the attacks he has received from either the left or the right. But his inability to articulate Reaganesque conservative principles is matched only by George W. Bush, who, despite a few exceptional moments, is less charismatic in his public speaking than even Harry Reid. (And believe me, I also like George Bush and believe that history will treat him far better than current so-called approval ratings might suggest.)
For McCain though, his difficulty in expressing those ideas is based partly in the fact that he is uncomfortable with much of the Reagan agenda (self-proclaimed ‘foot-soldier’ or not.) Against an opponent who has a clear record of far-left positions, McCain was not a good choice because he really is a middle-of-the-road guy in most areas. A legitimate stance, but not one that enables the party to draw sufficient contrast with the opposition.
Sarah Palin was a contrast, but she is so new to the national scene that her unfamiliarity made it possible for the parodies to define her in the minds of much of the electorate. She is neither an airhead nor a Maggie Thatcher (yet). Although she is the first politician outside of Newt Gingrich that I have seen quote Plato in an off-the-cuff interview (with Hannity). She might have Maggie Thatcher potential, but frankly, I cannot envision her at the top of the ticket in 2012.
Maybe she should choose herself to replace Ted Stevens as Senator when all that dust settles. She would definitely take some heat for that, but give her six years in the Senate old boy’s club and she would have the opportunity to establish serious credentials.
In the meantime, the Republicans need to find a standard-bearer who wholeheartedly believes in and can effectively articulate solid conservative principles. And a little charisma would not hurt.
Steve Schmidt was the biggest drag on the ticket.
Schmidt was the senior campaign strategist and advisor to McCain.
I doubt we’ll ever see a more ineptly run campaign again in our lifetimes.
The drag on the ticket was twofold: the media and McCain - in that order.
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