Analysts: McCain doomed from start

UPI ^

[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.

[I see my hands]

"Unfair to a true hero"

I know.. unfair and low for a coward to betray a stalwart ally. Someone he recruited.

[WilliamReading]

There is a professor at major college, and he has been able to predict the results of the last 20 Presdiential Elections based on the growth of Gross Domestic Product.

McCain-Palin could have pulled it off, I think, had it not been for the failure of Lehman Brothers, if it could have waited for two more months. Alas, it didn’t

[Khepri]

HA! Big tenters try to CYA....no thanks, not buying it.

[redangus]

It never ceases to amaze me how deep MDS is on this site. Mitt traveled the whole country working for the campaign and trying to get Rep. House members elected. But hey who cares about the facts when vile, hateful idiocy will do.
You people and your religious bigotry(and no I do not work for Mitt nor am I a Mormon) made me sick back during the primaries and even more so now. All your hard work during the primary got you the candidate you wanted and we all got the result you should have expected.

[WilliamReading]

Obama was the one Democrat who could have lost, and McCain was the one Republican who could have won.

But it was a bridge too far.

[org.whodat]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2128905/posts

[TomGuy]

What McCain did, however, was to join the Democrats in blaming capitalism itself.

And lead the charge for the boondoggle bailout plus another $150 billion in pork on top of it.

And then he claims he, as president, would veto every bill that contained pork.

Mc's problem was his message---s, which were all over the map.

[GoodDay]

“And now we see the results.”

Exactly.

Which makes me surmise that Bush purposely had a hand in the Hussein win. Not sure why.

I also find it interesting that even when McCaine-Palin were trending strongly upward in the polls — mainly due to Palin — Bill Clinton was interviewed and said “Don’t worry. Obama will win handily.” He was right, but did he have access to information that no one else did?

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

“Suspending his campaign” for one day, during the financial crisis travesty didn’t help any.

I think this move was partly motivated in part by some “country first” notion, and I think also in part it was to be coupled by leading a counter-insurgency movement against the bailout being stuffed down our throats.

So it was flawed conceptually, and even beyond that, it was flawed in how it was carried out.

The other major flaw was obviously keeping Sarah under wraps for the first 6 weeks or so, letting the opposition define her, and then turning her loose the the drivebys.

I swear the republicans always play like either the team that went up against the Harlem Globetrotters, or like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football.

McCain could also have made an issue of Card Check, which would be a clear winner among the vast number of Americans, but he completely ignored that one.

Stupid Party, does it again.

[Churchillspirit]

Think of Sen. McCain what you will - but calling him a coward is grossly unfair.

[E. Cartman]

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.

Mmmm, don't forget that he was the Democrats' and MSM's pick for The GOP. That's what doomed his candidacy.

[redangus]

McCain was the one Republican that had no chance of beating any Democrat. That is why the Media, Democrat crossovers and Indies chose him for us with a huge leg up from the hardcore religiously bigoted Evangelical movement, who by the way showed they are pretty irrelevant now and maybe more of burden than a help going forward

[E. Cartman]

It was not Romney’s religion that did this. It was Romney’s backstabbing, Romney’s viciousness. There was innuendo after innuendo, just like Romney and his servants went after the GOP candidates.

Not to excuse Romney, but the weird s**t Arkansas governor and "Christian" preacher Mike Huckabee pulled set the ball rolling. Without the Huckabubster's psycho crap, McCAin would never have won the nomination. Don't forget WV.

[Amendment10]

Speaking of Bush-bashing, the people need to be reconnected with the intentions of the Founders as reflected by the Constitution. The people need to get up to speed with the idea that so-called constitutional expert Socialist Obama has actually based many of his campaign promises on constitutionally non-existent federal government powers, much federal spending these days having no constitutional authorization. In fact, constitutional statutes that Obama and the Democrats have been in contempt of where constitutionally unauthorized federal spending is concerned are the following, in my opinion.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution (emphasis added) in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

[mrsmith]

Any analysis that doesn't start at the huge financial advantage Obama had... well, it's for small children.

Adults know better.

[E. Cartman]

Who best to analyze why McCain was doomed from the start than the people who engineered his nomination?

You're talking about the democrats, right?

[citizencon]

McCain lost because of the MSM which started campaigning for the Democratic Party right after GWB won his second term.
For four years the MSM have been condemning the war-editorializing rather than reporting about it. On the gloomy economy, they have been reporting on its outcome but not the cause of it which is the Democratic Party.

[A CA Guy]

They didn't run a conservative, just someone far more conservative than the Democrat.

When two Democrat types are up for a vote, almost always the real Democrat wins.

The lessons of running toward moderates and liberals by the Republican party needs to be put to rest.
They need to run conservatives and prevent sabotage in our primaries by letting only Republicans vote for Republicans in primaries where they have a choice.

That's how I see it.

[Diogenesis]

You people?

Wake up. I was not working for Sen.McCain,
although in the past I had once worked to help Romney until
I realized his own goal was HIMSELF, and betrayed us all.

In the end, Mitt Romney is the reason Obama won.
The constant nitpicking on Gov.Palin by ROmney’s troops
was fatal to the election for the GOP.

If YOU do not find Romney’s bad behavior (just like
he was in the primaries) contemptible, then you
should get out more.

[snarkytart]

Rasmussen was dead on with his polling. He said some of his internals showed McCain leading Obama on things like the economy, and leadership, but the people polled were still going to vote for Obama.
Rasmussen said on Hannity’s radio show that there wasn’t anything McCain could say or do, that people were going to vote Obama. Ras even called the percentages dead on at the end.
Damn.

In the end, with all the analysis, McCain probably came as close as any Republican could come to winning this year.
The Republicans and Bush defeated themselves by becoming “Democrat lite.”
I don’t think the public was interested in hearing about how radical or left wing Obama was...they were like, “Whatever, we don’t want another Republican in power for another 4-8 years because the economy sucks. Obama is new and young. CHANGE.”
bleh

Maybe Obama’s inexperience even worked FOR him, he wasn’t seen as someone in DC forever and therefore he was the “outsider.”