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Analysts: McCain doomed from start
UPI ^

Posted on 11/09/2008 11:36:20 AM PST by WilliamReading

PHOENIX, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain lost his bid for the White House mainly because anti-incumbent fury doomed him from the start, analysts say.

McCain made many missteps, but they didn't matter much because it was clear no Republican stood much of a chance in the 2008 election with voters overwhelmingly blaming President George Bush and the GOP for the nation's problems, The Arizona Republic reported Sunday.

McCain, who represents Arizona in the Senate, lost to Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois last week in an electoral college landslide. He never stood a realistic chance, said Alberto Gutier, a longtime Phoenix Republican activist and McCain supporter.

"Everything was going to go the wrong way for the Republicans, in general, because of the negatives that President Bush had," he said. "When you combine the war, the economy, the gas prices -- it's a hell of a thing."

"Our polls and national polls showed that most people by a 2-to-1 margin blamed Bush and the Republicans more than the Democrats for getting us into the mess, and they believed that Obama was more likely to get us out of it," Bruce Merrill, a veteran Arizona pollster, told the Republic.

(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Arizona
KEYWORDS: 2008; bho2008; doomed; issues; mccain; postmortem
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To: Virginia Ridgerunner

I saw that careless, stupid side of GWB myself. A couple of days before the 2006 election, George W. Bush lied and said he intended to keep Don Rumsfeld as the Secretary of Defense, implying no big changes in his failed Iraq policy.

As a result, many voters through out Republican Congressmen who supported the war.

The day after the 2006 Election, Bush broke his word and promptly fired Rumsfeld. If he had done it a couple of days before, at least 8 GOP seats could have been saved.

But instead, Bush lied about it right before the election. What did Bush care about the GOP?


101 posted on 11/09/2008 12:19:31 PM PST by WilliamReading
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To: Diogenesis
Sick, perverted, sick, perverted, sick, perverted!
102 posted on 11/09/2008 12:20:57 PM PST by org.whodat ( "the Whipped Dog Party" , what was formally the republicans.)
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To: Voter#537
"Bush didn't use the Bully Pulpit to defend himself"

Yes, and the media was able to make everything became a Bush- IE: Republican- problem.

McCain probably told him to stay well out of the election, but he shouldn't have just laid down. It didn't help him or McCain.

103 posted on 11/09/2008 12:21:51 PM PST by mrsmith
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To: redangus

Agreed


104 posted on 11/09/2008 12:22:06 PM PST by org.whodat ( "the Whipped Dog Party" , what was formally the republicans.)
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To: E. Cartman

It’s true though.
I said in another thread a few days ago, that I didn’t think anybody over the age of 60 would ever be elected President again with the media and image being what it is now.
Nobody is looking for a tough grandpa.


105 posted on 11/09/2008 12:22:27 PM PST by snarkytart
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To: E. Cartman

It’s true though.
I said in another thread a few days ago, that I didn’t think anybody over the age of 60 would ever be elected President again with the media and image being what it is now.
Nobody is looking for a tough grandpa.


106 posted on 11/09/2008 12:22:28 PM PST by snarkytart
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To: WilliamReading; All
Yes a very good analysis and some excellent comments. But I think that there are a number of other factors involved.

1. The Dumbing down of the American Public via the Public Schools (and some private) continues at a furious pace.

2. The entitlement mentality. A huge percentage of the American Population expects "goodies" from the Federal Government. Put succinctly , the number of people who consume wealth is exceeding the number of people who produce wealth.

3. The entertainment mentality. Look when a substantial number of people get their political commentary from "The Daily Show", Colbert, and Oprah you know we are in trouble. This is really a part of the dumbing down.

4. The MSM. A complete total and utter DISGRACE. They were in the tank for Obama from the start.

5. Third World Immigration The newly minted citizen starting since 1965 are voting just the way I expected them. Democratic. This group of people have an entitlement mentality. Just because they were fleeing oppression overseas or want a better standard of living doesn't mean they know what it takes to be a citizen of a democratic republic and the inherent responsibilities this entails.
107 posted on 11/09/2008 12:22:31 PM PST by truthguy (Good intentions are not enough!)
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To: Diogenesis

“I realized his own goal was HIMSELF”

Doesn’t that basically describe all politicians? In a year when change and the economy were the main issues Mitt was probably the best chance we had of derailing the OBama express. Like him or not he had great success in the business world, understood the economy, was articulate and was a figure that people could have been comfortable with. Not to mention he would have actually been able to run as a competent Washington outsider.

Of all the primary candidates we run the one person who had no chance of winning this election and even then he only lost by 6%. Just think what could have been if we had ran a good candidate and Mitt wasn’t the only option.


108 posted on 11/09/2008 12:22:36 PM PST by redangus
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To: driftless2
Lead in polls, 1 percent for one week, I would not call that a lead.
109 posted on 11/09/2008 12:24:35 PM PST by org.whodat ( "the Whipped Dog Party" , what was formally the republicans.)
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To: WilliamReading

Well, duh.


110 posted on 11/09/2008 12:24:38 PM PST by Reagan Man ("In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.")
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To: redangus
Of all the primary candidates we run the one person who had no chance of winning this election and even then he only lost by 6%. Just think what could have been if we had ran a good candidate and Mitt wasn’t the only option.

Yes and the polls show the votes were there, no candidate = no candidate.

111 posted on 11/09/2008 12:26:25 PM PST by org.whodat ( "the Whipped Dog Party" , what was formally the republicans.)
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To: Reagan Man

Duh, what? lol


112 posted on 11/09/2008 12:26:30 PM PST by WilliamReading
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To: truthguy
5. Third World Immigration The newly minted citizen starting since 1965 are voting just the way I expected them. Democratic. This group of people have an entitlement mentality. Just because they were fleeing oppression overseas or want a better standard of living doesn't mean they know what it takes to be a citizen of a democratic republic and the inherent responsibilities this entails.

Bingo!!!

113 posted on 11/09/2008 12:27:37 PM PST by org.whodat ( "the Whipped Dog Party" , what was formally the republicans.)
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To: WilliamReading
I disagree. what killed him was the media. Ronald Reagan would not have stood a chance with that kind of one-sided, overtly campaigning for Obama, refusing to do any investigative journalism at all, letting him sake on every, single issue. Giving him a "Get out of Jam" free card for Bill Ayers, Rev. Wright, Saul Ailinsky, Tony Rezko Rashid Khalidi, Auchi, George Soros, and the rest of his Rogue's Gallery. The media was not just "in the tank for Obama -- they were all in bed with him from the begiging. The incessant fawning over him at every turn.

Negative commentary was suppressed as well. Think about all of the allegedly independent surveys conducted under the guise of "nonpartisan political polling."

That, coupled with the never-ending character assassinations of McCain and especially Sarah Palin, while looking the other way on every transgression committed by Obama and his bulldog Biden.

The apoligetic MSM never once brought themselves to actually deconstruct anything that Obama was saying. They made purses out of all Obama's pig ears. The Palestinians in Gaza had more of an open election than we had.

While the reports of voter fraud, voter intimidation, and underhanded dealing were swirling around, the media was clearing the way for the Obama steamroller to flatten all opponents in his path.

We watch TV shows like "24," "Numbers," "Prison Break," "the Unit," and others that we have come to view as fiction, not realizing that what was happening in rwal life was stranger and more ominous than any TV series could ever concoct ot of their creative minds.

Eisenhower would also have been flattened, just as Reagan would have been.

The media gave a little wink in response to the enormity of the campaign contributions OBama received. They collected more money than the GNP of many third-world countries!

In that pot, at the end of the Socialist rainbow, was $63 million and change (that we know about) from foreign investors, primarily from the Middle East.

Now, everybody and his mother are playing, "Monday Morning Quarterback," first blaming the quarterback, then the backup, then the Offensive coordinator, then the Defense Coordinator, and then the fans themselves. Never mindful that the opposing team had pulled a Bill Belichek and stolen their playbook.

In this election, the Campaign and their obedient puppy dogs were playing the "Race Card" more than American voters played the lotterhy.

Never have I seen a bigger bunch of lazy, good-for-nothing journalists than what I saw in this electon -- with the lone exception of reports who parrot the Palestinian media.

Laziness is what drove the media into waiting arms of virulent, pro-Obama "fact-checking" sites like Factcheck and Politifact. When they were not, outright lying their butts off, they were blowing out of proportion anything and everything related to McCain and Palin.

Just as they did whenever any attacks took place in Israel, the Media took the wrong side of the conflict, communing with terrorists, and all-too-happy to act as their shills for passing along propaganda.

What they did to Sarah Palin was unconscionable. They strung her up by her heels for spending $150,000 on clothes while Obama spent $800,000 of taxpayer money on airfare alone for his personal trips to Hawaii.

Not to mention the $millions of taxpayer dollars spent to give him Secret Service protection, earliar than any candidate in the history of our country.

At every single interview with Obama and Biden, the MSM tossed fluffy balls of cotton candy in contrast to the bricks and bombs they lobbed at Palin and McCain.

There were so many letdowns and put-downs that, if were not for the blogsphere, nobody would know anything remotely related to the Truth.

Thank God for the blogsphere.

The GOP should have rallied around their candidate instead of bitching and moaning about McCain. What? Are there too many wusses in the party who think that McCain could not be given any guidance? Did they really feel that McCain would run the whole show without any commitments to his own party?

The GOP abandoned him, letting him twist slowly in the wind, because he was not conservative enough, not not pro-family enough, not anti-environmental enough, and so on.

How could they allow their opponent to waltz into the White House virtually uncontested? Why weren't all these "Not tested" ads run in the first two weeks of the campaign, rather than last two weeks of the campaign?

People in glass houses should not throw stones, unless they've got a friend in the home improvement industry.

114 posted on 11/09/2008 12:32:18 PM PST by Polarik ("The Greater Evil")
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To: WilliamReading
Very true. No GOP candidate could have overcome the blatant brainwashing of the American public by the MSM over a period of 8 yrs. I totally blame the media, the lost and wandering child of abuse, for what we are faced with now.

McCARTHY WAS RIGHT 20008!

115 posted on 11/09/2008 12:35:06 PM PST by ishabibble (ALL-AMERICAN INFIDEL)
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To: WilliamReading
Duh: —used derisively to indicate that something just stated is all too obvious or self-evident.

This is not an analysis that is lost on many conservative FReepers. Conclusions all too obvious. Duh that!

116 posted on 11/09/2008 12:35:15 PM PST by Reagan Man ("In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.")
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To: Reagan Man

well you are good at being derisive, if nothing else.


117 posted on 11/09/2008 12:36:39 PM PST by WilliamReading
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To: org.whodat

McCain-Palin were ahead by more than one point. For the weeks after the Pubbie convention all the way to crash they were ahead by as much as five points depending on the poll. But even if was just one point, and the Pubbies were doomed no matter what, why didn’t Obama have a commanding lead from the start?


118 posted on 11/09/2008 12:37:49 PM PST by driftless2
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To: ishabibble

I guess the Republicans were the victims. But Harry S. Truman once had a sign on his desk, “The Buck Stops Here”. Apparently that doesn’t apply to a Republican president like Bush.


119 posted on 11/09/2008 12:38:30 PM PST by WilliamReading
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To: WilliamReading
because anti-incumbent fury

IF there was anti-imcumbent fury the house would have changed, but it didn't.

FWIW, the DBM SELECTED Obama, and some of us blindly followed him into SOCIALISM!!

120 posted on 11/09/2008 12:40:24 PM PST by FreeAmerica2009
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