Because of course, the American people were almost certain to say;
“There’s a third Bush we can elect! Woo-hoo! We can’t lose!”
:rolleyes:
And remember, in 1992, Democrat high-flyers decided to sit out the election, so Bill Clinton got the nomination, Ross Perot came on the scene, and the rest is history.
This is kind of begging the question, isn’t it? Are they even losing the election? Look, 29% of the electorate still thinks President Bush is doing a good job. I think we can assume that those votes will not be going to Barack Obama. Are you all so positive that Obama will be successful in capturing 70% of the remaining voters? I voted for Senator Obama once already, and plan to do so again, but don’t go betting your lungs on this election.
Wombat - was that a woosh? The OP might not have been stated as elegantly as you might have liked, but the intention behind his statements were a lot more obvious than your snarky comments would suggest, even for me, who has only a minimal understanding of the political “scene”.
Some of the other R candidates were not just younger chronologically then McCain, they were more youthful and vibrant in how they came across. Granted, we should probably be comparing McCain to the other R candidates than to Obama for the purposes of this OP
Ha! A good point, and a funny one.
Republicans as in, fellow Republican politicians. McCain is not well liked within his own party amongst his peers. Obviously he’s liked well enough by the Republican general population at least compared to who was running against him. But his reputation is not so great at homebase.
He was clearly talking about perception. McCain has a well documented history of hotheadedness and occasionally bizarre or vindictive behavior. The OP wasn’t saying anything about his actual medical diagnosis.
Thanks Dr. Obvious. But “getting votes” is not an action, it’s an effect. It’s ignoring the point of the OP which is, why did McCain get the nomination in spite of serious electability issues, and did internal party dealings have any effect on that, or was it purely a matter of the amount of public support he got, or some other factor?
That seems unlikely to me, but I am curious about the other examples given by the OP of Republicans half hearted running candidates in elections they were unlikely to win. I’m wondering what the factors at play were there.
I think you are confusing what he was actually asking (why is there a weak R candidate this year) with his proposed answer (some kind of party tactic). The question is serious and meaningful, while the proposed answer was not meant to be taken literally.
On the contrary, McCain is the only Republican that has a chance to win. In a year where the GOP is about to have their heads handed to them, the fact that Mccain is only 3-5 down demonstrates his relative strength.
This is also a guy who led Al gore by 20 points in trial heat polls in 2000.
If anything, the Democrats chose a weak candidate. Knowing that they had all the advantages this year, they chose the guy they’d like to have rather than the guy with the best chance to win. Obama’s strengths are all in the style department. he has no significant accomplishments, less experience than any candidate in the last 100 years at least, and his campaign rhetoric and his actions are completely unrelated to an extent that would make even the most duplicitous politician blush.
I think if the Republicans intended to throw the election, they’d never have picked McCain- he was far and away the most electable of the Republican field. Huckabee or Romney would have been much more unelectable because they have little appeal to swing voters. McCain may not be an especially strong candidate, but he holds the right-wing views on the Iraq war, Christianity in government, taxes, and other issues that will allow him to prevent a mass defection of his party’s base while still holding some sway with swing voters. Any other candidate in the Republican primary would have lost those swing voters to a populist like Obama (or arguably Clinton) and lost the general election.
Another thing - it can be that the McCain-haters in the GOP are disproportionately loud voices of the “movement conservative” faction, the right-wing equivalents of the Jesse Jackson types and the “Hillary VP or else” faction in the Dems; and that cooler heads realize: *hey, the point is to get elected, not to make a point about being the tightest righty, let’s throw the foaming-at-the-mouth crowd some platform planks at the Convention to see if they’ll calm down *.
As Quartz observed, the initial field was rather thin and virtually nobody there was really a match for a large enough set of the Republican/Conservative spectrum (among those “taken seriously”, Mitt was IMO the closest to a “normal” Rep/Con contentwise but he did not catch on personalitywise nor did he project some idea of what he was really all about [plus the Christocratic faction was scared of Mormons]; Rudy collapsed his own campaign spectacularly with his bonehead strategy and Manhattanite charm and was even more divergent from standard conservatism than Mac; Fred T. took too long to get in so it ended up looking like a cynical “what are you gonna do, vote for one of those other punks?” move, devoid of real content, besides if you could have voted for the guy who was a real New York prosecutor and didn’t, why vote for the guy who plays one on TV?; Huck appealed to the Theocrat wing but was a “them rich folks in Wall Street are rippin’ us off” populist on economics so there goes support from the corporate faction).
Besides, Mac had the advantage that having aleady run vs. W in 2000, a lot of the Rep/Con electorate already had in their minds the seeds of an idea along the lines of *“holy schamoly, maybe we should have elected THIS fellow instead”. *
In the end I tend to think that, given the circumstances, McCain is probably a realistic choice for the GOP. Don’t go preprinting “OBAMA DEFEATS MCCAIN” front pages just yet…
Can we at least have some ‘GOPocalypse’ buttons prepared for the house and senate races? 
Actually, he’s more like the Republican Bob Dole. Who was also a Republican, which makes the comparison even more apt. Both very old, both war veterans, both longtime senators, both compromise, nobody-else-good-enough-ran choices.
The difference is that McCain can win, because Obama is black, and a lot of voters will be affected by that.
There’s also the perception among some voters (ancient doddering Boomers, no doubt) that McCain’s age is not a defect, but reflects experience. One could readily argue that that experience hasn’t taught him the right lessons, but it’s still “experience”.
Obama’s race will cost him some votes; the relative lack of experience will cost him more. I’m still waiting for proof that youngish voters will storm the polls and be an overwhelming force in this election.
Mind you, I’m still leaning towards Obama. But let’s get real - this will be a close race and lots of things can happen between now and November that could make McCain look more appealing.
Republican pols will not be jumping up and down in glee at their secret plan working, should Obama win in November. There is one group of right-wingers that would be exchanging terrorist fist-bumps - and that’s pundits and radio talk show hosts. They’ll have fodder and an energized base that’s grown listless over the recent years of Bush stagnation and decline.
I personally think it’s more likely they’ll say it about Obama. “A black guy with Muslim sounding last name that sounds like ‘Osama’? Who the hell thought he’d make a good candidate?” I hope I’m wrong, but my pessimism seems to have a better track record than my optimism the last decade or so.
If Obama loses, I think people will look back and wonder how they could have based an entire candidacy on being a good orator.
If McCain loses, he was still the best chance the Republicans had. If he loses the election by 5 points while the republicans in Congress get murdered I don’t think anyone’s going to be questioning the McCain choice. Losing a close election in a bad year for Republicans is nothing to be ashamed of. Romney or Huckabee or Thompson would probably be down by double digits right now.
The real question is who in their right minds voted for that lunatic Alan Keyes?
Electoral-Vote.com has commented a few times that older voters are actually more likely to hold McCain’s age as a disadvantage than younger ones. first cite I could fine (EV.com really needs a search function):
Given the party leadership in the past 20 years or so, all the superstars are far right. In the primaries the right wingers and the moderates trying to look right wing split the vote, and so McCain. I suspect McCain polls better than any other Republican possibility - I suspect they picked the best of the lot despite themselves.
The answer to the OP is no, of course. However, it will be interesting to see which way they turn if McCain loses big. Will the true right wing believers blame picking a relative moderate, or will they decide they need to “rebrand” better?
You know, the Republicans in Congress like to portray themselves as far right, but they aren’t. They’re just fat, piggish politicians like the rest of them. When the occasional one with principles comes out and says something bad about earmarking or transparency, the good ole’ boys haul him out to the woodshed.
It’s the same in the Democratic party. For every Obama you’ve got three old warhorses, who send pork home to their districts to have buildings named after them and to pave the way for their glorious return upon retirement. They’ll stomp and spit at Democrats and give angry speeches, but they just go back to their offices after and resume cutting deals and taking car of business as usual. Why do you think Congress has a 9% approval rating? Democrats don’t like their leaders either.
This is going to be a strange election, I think. I have no clue what’s going to happen. But the country is pretty riled up, there’s a lot of dissatisfaction, and the two candidates running are interesting. I would have said that this is a great year to see a real third party rise, but unfortunately there are no serious challengers. The best they can do is Bob Barr for the Libertarians, and that’s not saying much. So I have no clue.
I do think it will either be McCain by a squeaker, or Obama in a blowout. Either Obama is going to sell himself as a serious and trustworthy president, in which case he’ll win big, or people will continue to have doubts, in which case you’ll have the typical election where the core lines up on each side and start to poach independents and they swing back and forth around the 50% mark.
A bit confused. Why would any “squeeker” necessarily be a McCain win, if the margin of victory is thin, why does that favor him over Obama? Whats the mechanism?
Because I think the ‘floor’ for Obama is probably close to 50%, but could be higher. If Obama doesn’t capture the center, it’ll be a squeaker like Kerry/Bush. If Obama inspires the people who currently aren’t paying attention the way he inspires his current followers, then he’ll take a lot of votes from McCain, and win big.
But hey, I could be wrong. This election is fairly different than any one you’ve had in a long time. There’s no incumbent President or Vice president running, for one thing. That alone makes it fairly unusual. And the country is in a funny mood. So maybe I’m completely off. That’s just the way I read it right now.
Obama has already inspired everyone. The only question is how many people between now and November will learn that there’s nothing else to him but the ability to give a good speech.
McCain is in the same position that he was in the Republican field. Voters are currently examining the latest big thing and when they realize there’s nothing there they’ll come back to McCain.
Anybody else get the feeling that **francois **might not be an Obama voter?