Top Thirty Errors That Doomed McCain

Pajamas Media ^ | November 4, 2008 | Jennifer Rubin

[yankeedame]

Top Thirty Errors That Doomed McCain

The results are in and the recriminations have begun. Sure, it might not have made any difference, but the number of sins of omission and commission by the McCain campaign is breathtaking. Let’s get a head start on the finger-pointing and give you the top thirty mistakes John McCain and his team made:

• Not pursuing the Reverend Wright connection, as an issue of judgment and then credibility. Even Jerry Nadler knew it was a sign that Barack Obama lacked political courage, i.e., character.
• Waiting until September to raise Barack Obama’s other troubling connections (e.g., Bill Ayers, Rashid Khalidi).
• Failing to devise a comprehensive economic message until the final weeks of the campaign.
• Failure to explain the Democrats’ role in the financial meltdown.
• Not enough talk about “friends of Angelo” and Democratic corruption.
• Wasting his convention speech on “bipartisanship” and biography instead of pounding home a core economic message.
• Frittering away time and money in Iowa.
• Losing time in the spring when McCain had sewn up the nomination but Obama had not. An ideal time to begin defining the contrast in messages.
• Appallingly deficient “oppo” research and timing. Why didn’t the “bankrupt the coal industry” tape come out before the final weekend?
• Going to war with the MSM without an effective plan to use alternate media to get their message out.
• Cutting off McCain’s daily access to the traveling press corps.
• The frenetic response to the financial meltdown. (Fire Chris Cox! Cancel the debate — no, hold the debate!) All that was missing was juggling knives on a tightrope above a fire pit.
• The roll-out of Sarah Palin.
• The internal trashing of Sarah Palin.
• The failure to put Sarah Palin on every radio and TV outlet they could find in the final two weeks of the campaign.
• The failure to find a top-flight economic advisor.
• Shutting down McCain’s regular contact with new media outlets.
• An insufficiently tough attack on Joe Biden’s lobbying and earmark activities.
• An insufficiently tough attack on Obama’s coziness with the Daley machine.
• An insufficiently tough attack on Obama’s ties and subservience to Big Labor.
• Failure to use McCain’s position in the U.S. Senate to introduce legislation and force votes on the floor that would have defined the two candidates (e.g., a budget freeze).
• Permitting chaos and public fighting among campaign staff. Heads should have rolled.
• Waiting too long to introduce the specter of undivided government.
• Waiting until the final Saturday Night Live before the election to show self-deprecating humor.
• Not firing Palin’s entire staff when they publicly trashed her.
• Insufficient registration and party-building efforts in Colorado and Virginia.
• Too much whining about the MSM.
• Too much hostility toward conservatives offering smart strategy and policy ideas.
• Not enough explanation and focus on Tony Rezko.
• Not enough explanation of the Herbert Hoover analogy (higher taxes and protectionism made the Great Depression worse) to a voting population that doesn’t know who Hoover was.

There is no telling whether some or all of these errors made a difference. Certainly it was the toughest of years for Republicans. Nevertheless, the campaign was one of the worst displays of organizational and ideological disarray in recent memory. Future candidates should take note of the errors and the error-makers and plan their campaigns accordingly.

[Moonman62]

Not even Reagan could have won after W’s reign of incompetence.

[meandog]

What costed McCain the election, once and for all, was the timed and planned market melt down in late September, EOS.

Thank you. The "October Surprise" was as if George "W"(orsepresident) Bush had actually set out to sabotage the McCain/Palin ticket in the belief that an Obama in the White House for four years would somehow restore his legacy.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

Which he could have used ^proactively^ by tying Obama and the Dems to Fan/Fred in August when the MSM was talking about foreclosures!

[expatpat]

In my opinion, their mistake was to not put most of their effort into emphasizing the message that Obama was TOO RISKY a choice to make. They started out briefly that way, and then ended up chasing a multitude of other themes, with minimal effect.

[verity]

So it is the conservatives who are responsible for the Messiah's election.

Thanks for the insight.

[moreofthesame]

McCain was actually a democrat tool who was meant to lose and bring down the GOP.

[snarkytart]

actually yes, some conservatives, and many republicans voted for Obama.

[Callahan]

I think the two things that hurt McCain more than anything was the botched handling of the credit crisis and the clumsy Palin roll out (not letting Palin herself off the hook here) which took the steam out of her boffo convention performance.

If the credit crisis could have been staved off for a few months this would have been a 2000 style squeaker.

[buckalfa]

Not so fast my FRiend. SC may be the next NC come 2012.

A transient national workforce, illegal immigration,
a sizeable minority population, retirees from up North,
means that SC’s demographics will be changing over the
next few years.

[Mr. Jazzy]

11) Picking Sarah Palin.
12) Picking Sarah Palin.
13) Picking Sarah Palin.
14) Picking Sarah Palin.
15) Picking Sarah Palin.
16) Picking Sarah Palin.
17) Picking Sarah Palin.
18) Picking Sarah Palin.
19) Picking Sarah Palin.
20) Picking Sarah Palin.

21) Picking Sarah Palin.
22) Picking Sarah Palin.
23) Picking Sarah Palin.
24) Picking Sarah Palin.
25) Picking Sarah Palin.
26) Picking Sarah Palin.
27) Picking Sarah Palin.
28) Picking Sarah Palin.
29) Picking Sarah Palin.
30) Picking Sarah Palin.

Just to help ya’ out there pal.

[concerned about politics]

Oboma was the right color at the right time. That made Oboma untouchable, because the anti-American UN forces were here to "make sure America wasn't a racist nation" or "violaters of human rights."

The anti-American world was watching. No one dared "offend" the black guy. He won the day he declared his candidacy.
That's why the left was bold enough to become totally lawless and blatant about it. They knew the anti-American UN election watchers would cover their backs no matter what. The U.N. wanted dirt. America didn't give them any.

Oboma was allowed to walk right into the White house. It was easier to do that than give propaganda to the worlds American haters during our war on terror.

It's just like everything Oboma has ever done. Someone else carried him through college. Someone else carried him through the legislature. Someone else carried him to the senate. Now, the UN and it's money carried him to the White house.

[Cicero]

Yes. All of those.

Plus the failure to get out the Evangelical vote. That was absolutely critical, and McCain screwed up royally. He was so frightened of the press attacking him for connections with the “religious right” that he just plain ignored the Evangelicals—and probably lost 5 or 10 million votes from folks who stayed home.

As for that mystical “center” who were going to vote for him, so he kept trying to appease them, forget it.

Sarah Palin attracted a lot of Christian voters, but that wasn’t enough.

Also related to this failure was the abortion issue. There was a complete press embargo on Obama’s position as a baby killer, and McCain only barely touched on this issue. He should have been using real Christian pastors to get out the vote for life. But he didn’t. The Catholic bishops did their part, although late in the game, but McCain, who was understandably mistrusted by Evangelicals after his lousy behavior in the 2000 campaign, never reached out, said he was sorry, and healed those wounds.

These are people who believe in the Heavenly City, and only vote occasionally in the Earthly City if something really draws them out. Otherwise, they say “a plague on both your houses” and stay home.

[MichiganCheese]

That was proven wrong yesterday.

[FreedomFerret]

Sarah Palin was at her best when she was just being Sarah Palin.

Dressing her up in $$$ namebrands, handeling her, scripting her, mandating talking points and buzz phrases, canned answers... it was just forced and artificial.

In jeans and a hoodie, being a Mom, a wife, a neighbor, chatting with regular people, simply speaking what she thought ~ she was pure political gold.

2012 needs Sarah being Sarah, and all handlers need to be tazered.

[Smedley]

I agree with you. Stabbing us in the back all those years meant he was starting this campaign with NO constituency.

Not true, but Chris Matthews and the rest of the MSM (you know, McCain's constituency) did abandon McCain for someone farther to the left.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

A good list...except for the last one.

You cant win the industrial Midwest promoting bad trade deals...the “protectionist” comments in the (formerly) industrial Midwest is like saying “Arafat” in a conservative Jewish community in Israel...a non-starter

Also, running a pro-illegal alien McCain took away any chance to win the “Reagan Democrats” who are against illegal alienism/amnesty as much as any conservative.

And, already mentioned, supporting the bailout...excersing real poor judgement

A good list, and most of them are so accurate. McCain was a bad candidate, with a bad campaign team.

[FredZarguna]

Wasting time in PA.

Having volunteered in PA, the loss by ELEVEN points tells me that McCain's biggest mistake may well have been that his internal pollsters were morons. We were told that not only PA, but a number of other races in other states were highly competitive and the public polls were mistaken. WRONG. As bad as even, say, Gallup was in PA, he was within the margin of error here. McCain's internals weren't even within twice margin of the final result.

[Lou L]

# 31. Accepting the limits of “public financing” for his campaign, and being unable to compete with Obama’s airtime.

[Lou L]

# 31. Accepting the limits of “public financing” for his campaign, and being unable to compete with Obama’s airtime.

[Callahan]

That’s ridiculous. Palin’s persona and inexperience may have turned off some independents and Repubs, but she fired up the base far more than a Romney or Pawlenty would have, which at least cancels out the haters. Remember we were facing a candidate that SNL refused to make fun of out of fear it would harm his chances.