To be fair to Juan, middle of the road politics was only part of the reason for an underwhelming turnout. Another important part was that he didn’t fight a meaningful fight. Chance after chance to strip Obama’s flim flams bare were simply wasted.
My completely unsolicited $0.02? McCain had his golden opportunity and blew it.
During all of the flap over gov't bailouts....rather than parroting the party line, if he had said "Look, I've (talked to my constituents / examined the bill / whatever excuse is convenient) and I can't - in good conscience - vote for the bailouts."
Instantly differentiates him from BO, and pulls the conservatives home. IMHO, it turns an Obama victory into a close contest.
For what it's worth, though, I think that we might be better off without him. McCain get elected, there's no tea parties. There's no conservative blowback. AND, we'd just wind up with roughly the same crap being shoveled at us. For instance, instead of BO passing a 800 billion dollar bailout bill a couple of months ago.....the Dems would have started at 1.2 trillion. Then there would have been "negotiations", the bill would have gotten trimmed down to "only 750 Billion" and McCain would have signed it. People here on FR would be saying "WOW! Be glad there's a Republican in the White House or things would be REALLY bad!" ....and we'd be in roughly the same boat as we are now, minus the conservative public activism.