Baloney. He did everything I claimed except out west where they didn’t put in enough campaigning. I never said he’d pull off a miracle. In fact I had known he would win (and polls up until the meltdown proved it. I never saw that happening and from then on I accepted it was an uphill battle. I felt we still had a decent chance - and we did. PA fell out because of the last minute Wright ad which probably hurt. Ohterwise McCain kept the margins in the east and midwest very close for an anti-GOP, wrong track election.
Just dispense with ‘booster’ and use my name. It’s much more forthright!
Oh, hell’s bells, Norm. I wasn’t talking JUST about you, since if I was, I’d have said you specifically. I’m not blaming you here, at least not exclusively. ;-) There were a number of McCain supporters (media types, pundits, etc) making the same claims that McCain was going to just outdo Dubya, especially in New England. It never materialized. You can cite all the polls you want, but those were ultimately bullcrap. Aside from Gov. Palin, who was mishandled by McCain’s people, this was the lousiest f’ing campaign for President in my lifetime, even eclipsing Bush, Sr’s meltdown in ‘92 (and that was bad because he seemed so bored that he didn’t even want to win). McCain had ample opportunity to go for the jugular, and he didn’t.
I remember seeing ex-OK Gov. Frank Keating on tv about a month ago or so, and in a very short answer, he forcefully made the case for why the False Messiah was incredibly dangerous (indeed, Keating was one of the FBI agents in the ‘70s who pursued his mentor, William Ayers). I thought for a moment, holy crap, we should’ve nominated Keating. He wasn’t scared for a second about calling a spade a spade on the criminal connections and following through in connecting the dots.
McCain couldn’t and wouldn’t do it, partly because he’s never demonstrated a killer instinct against Democrats (unlike against Conservatives in his party, which he always never hesitated to attack) and also partly because he was engaged too much in collegiality towards a fellow Senator. I was waiting for the moment in the debates to see him rip into him with, “You’re DAMN right I’m questioning your patriotism ! I’m questioning your experience ! I’m questioning your connections ! I’m questioning your agenda !And I’m g’damned questioning your place of birth ! Where the hell is your birth certificate ? I had to produce mine because I was born in the Panama Canal Zone, where’s yours, FRIEND ?” And... nothing. Half-hearted comments and pulled punches.
But, hey, I still schleped my absentee ballot off because I didn’t want to be accused of “electing ‘Him’” and tried to persuade an anti-McCain Conservative to bite the bullet and do the same. As somebody who did vote for him, I’ve damn well earned the right to say he failed ME and others as a candidate in stopping this horrific madness about to ensue in 2 months and 7 days. He forgot this election wasn’t just about him, it was about all of US. WE pay the price with his loss, since Johnny keeps his Senate seat, same as before. I think if he had dispensed with the grating “my friends” schtick and had shown that he TRULY wanted to win (which lasted for all of 5 minutes after picking Palin), we’d not be in the $hit we’re in right now. The wrong candidate at the wrong time.
And remember, Norm. It’s not like I didn’t warn you what would happen.
The polls indicated PA was a long shot before the Wright ad. McCain simply was never actually competitive there despite out performing Bush in southwest PA.