He did so well the last time.
to be fair, he did about as well as could be expected once the credit, financial and stock markets all collapsed at the same time.
If you look at the Fair model by that guy at Yale who plugs in the economic data and predicts the election, and who’s pretty much been right with every election of the past 100+ years, what McCain ended up getting was around what the economic data said he’d get.
He has a tool on his site where you can plug in different variables. If the economic data last year(GDP growth rate, inflation, market performance) was the same as it was in 2004 or 2000, McCain would have won, just as Bush did. Converseley if the data in 2004 was the same as it was last year, Kerry would have won, just as Obama did. It was basically the economic collapse that determined the outcome of the election.
In a way it’s a shame that a guy who did what he did for this country, then went through 2000, waited 8 long years to run again, was totally finished throughout most of 2007 and amazingly won the nomination, saw his shot at the WH ended because of an economic collapse that he really had little if anything to do with.
That said, he was never my first choice, and it’s time for someone new.