>"Mitt really wanted to win and kept working hard, which saved McCain's campaign back when we all thought he was dead.You missed that one FRiend. McLame was SELECTED as the WEAKEST (r) candidate.
He was out of money, DOA! No ideas, no charisma, no hope of winning. Then blammo, the ENEMEDIA selected him for us. Suddenly every story was of him, the super republican candidate, forget those other lib (r's).
Only thing is he picked the weakest VP he thought possible. In his eyes, she was a terrible pick. No Tonian social skills. Didn't know all the Sk-n-Bees connections. Totally out of the loop, off way up north not even touching any other state.
Sarah IS a real person. Not a phony. Not a polly. The response scared them!!!!! Badly!
McLame was selected, yes, but he had to stay undead until then to be available for selection. Some candidates had already died and been buried, Thompson and Brownback. McLame had no ideas, no charisma and no money
left but hadn't been staked in his coffin. He had had money once, but had invested it on staff and organization and that asset remained as embers in a few states on which the media could breath during the debates. McCain dodged an early staking by skipping the Iowa straw poll and essentially skipping the Iowa caucuses. Thus the media could give him a pass for his atrocious results there. Rudy tried to skip everything prior to Florida, but that strategy proved too much a delay and the one time front runner really was dead by the time Florida arrived. Fred also "skipped" the Iowa straw poll by staying on the fence until after it. He then slipped it and did just enough to keep the conservative vote from coalescing around the only serious candidate who seemed to want it, Mitt. Some here doubt Mitt's conservative bonafides, but none can doubt that he was making a serious national effort to get the self styled conservative vote united behind him nor that he wanted the job! Fred's late, lazy entry (I only saw him exert himself in South Carolina) kept Mitt from uniting conservatives at a time during which Rudy's hibernation and lack of other options otherwise could have allowed it. Then Huck's ability to leverage and innuendo the very odd fact of Iowa having the highest proportion of evangelicals into an upset on zero resources left Mitt vulnerable going into the one state where McLame still had resources, New Hampshire. Then the media could save and select McLame.
Without Fred and Huck I don't think he could have been saved and for better or worse the nominee would have been Romney. Certainly some usual GOP voters would have stayed home rather than vote for Romney. Certainly some did rather than vote for McLame; I'm not sure which would cost the most purist votes among the base. But also certainly Romney would not have given Obama the kid glove treatment as McLame did. I don't know whether they'd have worked, but there would have been lots of negative ads going over the head of the media. And Romney likely would have managed the market crashing better; he hardly could have done worse. He might not have had the advantages from picking Palin, but that's not certain. Against Romney Obama wouldn't have felt the need for Biden's alleged foreign policy strength and might have picked Hillary. Faced with that ticket Romney might have turned to Palin.