McCain’s platform was conservative (except for the virtual absence of immigration reform). The problem was that he didn’t seem to believe in it and, more importantly, that he never explained the benefits of his policies in a clear, convincing way.
Against pork barrel spending? OK, Senator McCain, now explain to the average American why cutting pork is beneficial to him? I’m not even sure that most Americans even know what pork barrel spending is to begin with. Yet he never explained himself.
McCain was against ethanol subsidies, and he even had the guts to say it in one of the debates. This is the primary reason why I voted for him. The problem? He didn’t explain WHY cutting ethanol is good for Americans, particularly low- and middle-income Americans struggling to deal with skyrocketing food costs. This was an absolutely stupid error. He lost the support of agribusiness by mentioning cutting subsidies, and once he’d done that, he didn’t even use the position to his advantage.
When offering conservative positions, McCain would do it as a concession to the “base”. Maybe he didn’t believe in them enough to sell these views to people who aren’t political geeks and pundits.
Yes and his amnesty turned off a whole passel of conservatives to him.
McCain over the years took pride in sticking it to conservatives. Then he just expected us to support his sorry old ass.
There was NO reason the G.O.P. once again nominated a tired old white guy because he’s hung around a little too long. Hello Mr. Dole.
I agree, this is pretty much exactly what happened. McCain was not a good speaker at all and didn’t articulate why his stances were good for Americans. In 2000 Bush ran on a really conservative platform (no war, budget responsibility, lower taxes) and people really liked it, unfortunatly events didn’t quite turn out that he could follow through on his platform, but it would still have resonated with people in this cycle (Ron Paul ran on that platform but got sidelined by the MSM, he still had a lot of support among the grass roots though, I maintain that if it had been a younger, better looking man (or woman for that matter) running on that platform you’d have a different election result today). The Republican Party needs leadership that can actually get the point across to the people, not an old man who fumbled his way through the election cycle losing support every time he opened his mouth.