He famously suspended his campaign to deal with the banking liquidity crisis.
That killed his campaign and GW’s record low popularity didn’t help.
As they say, the rest was history.
There were several times where he phoned it in and conservatives had to try to carry deadweight over the finish line.
He did everything possible to lose the 2008 election. Looking at things now....we can actually appreciate that Obama beat Hillary in the primary, and Obama beat McCain in the election. Of the three ‘evils’....Obama was the lesser.
I remember driving home from a job in northern NH and listening to the returns from one of the primaries. I got home and told my wife that Obama did not say much, but he said it better than anyone has in years.
McCain never should have stopped campaigning. That was a mistake. But he was never going to win. Never.