The economy crashed. It’s as simple as that. Of course McCain would outrun any national Republican there.
Huh ? Norm, he ran BEHIND Dubya — in EVERY New England state. Conversely, in mine, he ran ahead of Dubya.
Thats iffy. The pre-primary polls showing McCain beating Obama in the all the battleground states stemmed from the fact that Obama wasn’t well known at the time. Once Obama picked up steam, he was able to defeat Hillary and eventually McCain. McCain did appeal to indies at a higher rate than other GOP candidates. However that indie appeal was soft. I’ve seen suburban independents sit on the fence between Obama and McCain. The financial crisis pushed them to Obama. However, even if the financial crisis didn’t happen, those surburban indies may have gone for Obama anyway for the sake of trying something new.
McCain had no ground game and little money. Thats why he took public financing. The base didn’t want to do anything for him before Palin came long.
In retrospect, I think Romney may have been able to do marginally better. The base tolerated Mitt more than McCain. Romney would have been able to raise $100 million more (no way any GOP candidate could match Obama’s warchest). Plus, he would have developed a better ground game. Because of that, Mitt would have maintained IN and NC, but lose all the other battleground states.