I believe McCain’s entire intention from day one...was simply to run a second place operation. Whatever pressure was brought on him to pick Palin...was simply luck. McCain was never destined to win the election, and I think half of us knew that.
On the one hand - I find that hard to believe... But on the other hand - the McCain campaign sure seemed like it was designed not to offend.
This seems like a guaranteed recipe for defeat - because you are going to 'offend' if you stake out a position and are willing to fight (fairly and righteously) for the job...
I attributed this to the McCain plan of appealing to the 'squishy undecided' camp - but the net result was that his campaign didn't act like it wanted to win.
To be partially fair, the Republican candidates are always going to battle under the disadvantage that they fight not only against the Democrat candidate, but also against the media and their distortions. Any 'aggressive campaigning' by Republicans will always be reported as 'going negative'. Whereas 'aggressive campaigning' by Democrats will either be ignored, or called 'aggressive campaigning'. Perhaps Senator McCain tried to steer away from 'aggressive campaigning' to avoid getting slimed by the media. Not that this helped him a wit...
Next time just come out firing and understand the media is going to call you names. They are going to do that anyways - so you might as well bring all your weapons to the battle.
Remember how the MSM bragged on McCain early in the primaries? They picked him for us because they thought he couldn’t win. By the time my state was able to vote it was all over. I didn’t even vote in the primaries because McCain was already selected. I sent money to Fred Thompson and hoped he’d win and pick Duncan Hunter as his running mate. They both folded early and the media kept talking up McCain. Huckbee in the mix didn’t help either. The MSM is going to run down every Republican that shows any promise for 2012, they are doing it to Palin now. Someone smarter than I am is going to have to make a plan.