Posted on 11/20/2008 6:44:58 AM PST by Rufus2007
As it turns out, swaying from conservative principles doesn’t always pay off for a Republican presidential candidate. Sen. John McCain learned that lesson that hard way.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior policy adviser to McCain’s failed campaign, said Nov. 19 that McCain’s support for the $700 billion bailout of the financial sector was the “key strategic blunder of the entire campaign.”
“We also make mistakes,” Holtz-Eakin told a group of conservatives at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. “There’s no doubt about it--20/20 hindsight. I think the key strategic policy error of the entire campaign, that is mine, is believing that the bailout bill would help.”
...more (w/audio)...
(Excerpt) Read more at businessandmedia.org ...
the other was cap ‘n trade. remember the Obama quote about bankrupting coal companies and skyrocketing electricity prices? Why didn’t mccain bring it up earlier? because his cap ‘n trade would also do that.
You cannot win a war when you loose the voters. I remember back 2007 saying that we need a ‘real conservative that can communicate’ and I got lots of angry replies saying that communication didnt matter. Well as 2007-2008 congress approval ratings dived many freepers rejoiced, yet polls showed voters were going to vote straight democrat. Democrats kept the focus on GWB . Voters , right or wrong, see the president as the entire government (it’s simple), and GWB gave that impression in September with Bailout bill, and 70% thought republicans still ran congress. Did you see GWB or McCain attack democrats (prior to October 2008) the way democrats attacked GWB?
But my point wasnt which was the worse of two evils which was clearly McCains argument, which lost. My point was “did those republicans deserve to win?” based on their actions or dis-actions?” See my tagline?
I heard her say the same thing herself at the Shippensburg rally. By that point, I think she was winging it on her own, McCain and his “advisors” be damned.
that one vote killed his entire record of going after pork and wasteful spending.
I’m surprised they’re even admitting it was a mistake.
McCain was seeking to do a conservative free campaign.
He essentially did, he picked palin as a “skirt” to woo hillary voters NOT to put a conservative on the ticket.
McCain’s first mistake, Hillary Democrats wear pantsuits not skirts.
McCain’s second mistake he tried to diminish the conservative aspects of palin via a beltway incompetent handler team.
McCain’s hindsight is 20/200.
But as for me, I will give her the same slack I gave Reagan when he did some things on the abortaion front that I opposed when he was Gov of CA. The perfect being the enemy of the good and all that....IMHO, right now she represents the purest form of conservatisim out there....along with a few, very few, others.
If 3% of the voters had switched, and one fifth of the GOP voters who usually voted but stayed home this time had voted, McCain would have been elected.
Ya think?
she deserves a chance, not a coronation. Remember that she was picked by mccain and not fully vetted by conservatives. She has to face a lot of tough questions and not by Gwen Ifil or Katie Couric.
Agree. Never trust someone with a hyphenated last name to be a senior adviser.
Who knows. She was required to toe the ticket line, so once McCain was for it, she had to speak for it.
Sure! I’d be honored!
Said the same thing the day after he went back to Washington.
McCain obviously lost because he WAS NOT a TRUE CONSERVATIVE.
His bet was based on attracting the moderates from both parties. Neither of them trusted him.
I think you hit the nail on the head.
D U H !!
But I am glad... the way he’s kissing Obama’s butt now... I’d shudder to think how much worse it would have been to have the Whitehouse and have HIM in it.
he would be bad for Republicans but I’d rather put country first over party. The islamofascists wouldn’t be jumping for joy and dancing in the streets if he was elected, unlike for Obama.
That was more than two decades ago, and during an era when the press still claimed to be objective.
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