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If this election had been McCain/Romney, or McCain/Pawlenty, or McCain/Lieberman, or McCain/Ridge, Republicans would have had NO chance of even holding the Dems under 60 seats in the Senate.

The KY and MS seats would’ve been lost as well. There was only one person in this campaign able to speak past the media straight to the people.

I can hear the conversation in AZ when McCain asked Palin to run with him, “Gov. Palin, my campaign is a wondering albatross, with no concrete platform except “The Surge Worked!!” and “I’m a Maverick.” Can you help me pull this thing out of the shitter?”

Palin: “I’ll give it my best shot. What are we going to run on? What’s our agenda?”

McCain: “I’m a Maverick. When it comes down to crunch time, and bold decisions need to be made, the American people can count on me to cut a deal with the Democrats, and leave those dastardly conservatives hanging.”

Palin: “But Senator, I consider myself a conservative.”

McCain: “Not now you’re not, here’s your script for the next two months, and my minions will be following you around for the next two months to make sure you stick to it. And by the way, don’t have any ideas about thinking for yourself. Its my way or the highway.”

In spite of all this, Palin energizes the nation and gives McCain a lead in the polls. Then the financial crisis hits, and McCain’s first response is “The economy is fundamentally strong.” I would assert that this line lost him the election because is sounds just like some bullshit that Andy Card would feed George Bush to say.

So dummy leaves Sarah Palin to get blindsided by this remark, she does her best to cover for him with the opaque explanation that McCain meant workers are strong or somesuch.

Then, a couple days later, the campaign issues a press release announcing they are leaving Michigan. Once again, no one tells Palin and she gets caught off guard. She says she wants to go there an fight for Michigan. Regardless, you can tell at this point that McCain people are in no way shape or form communicating with Palin. It looks like, and is poor leadership.

This election came down to leadership. Senators don’t win presidential elections because they lack leadership credentials or that mentality. Obama spent his entire time as a senator running for president. He picked skilled people to run his campaign and executed an effective one. He had a strategy. He also had the tactics to execute that strategy.

McCain had nothing but tactics. He had from March to November to develop a platform of action and articulate it. Instead, he just drifted from news item to news item arguing tactics. Rush put it best when he said we were going to have to “drag the campaign over the finish line.” Even the “Joe the Plumber” episode displayed this further. Although they did a good job of explaining Obama’s “wealth re-distribution” philosophy, McCain let Obama get away with stating that only the rich would get taxed and have their wealth re-distributed. Obama still won this class warfare argument because McCain couldn’t communicate how this will destroy jobs and the middle class.

Had McCain developed and presented a succinct platform that people could say “A vote for McCain is a vote for this..” he would’ve won. But he couldn’t because he is a tactician, not a strategist. Tacticians do well in low and mid level management, but not running for president.