If McCain Had Chosen Anyone Reasonable for VP, he'd be President McCain

Great Debates
1

I honestly believe that, for all the hype Lord Obama got, the presidential election was McCain’s to lose this summer. I am so glad that Obama won, I wanted him to win, I’m still all goose pimply and pinching myself that it happened, but… logically it never should have, for several reasons until August 29. I think that Sarah Palin cost him the presidency. If through some odd sequence the Constitution had been altered to decree that a candidate had the right to choose his opponent’s running mate, I don’t think Obama could have picked a better worse running mate than Palin- he owes her the presidency more than he does Biden, the Clintons, or anyone else.

McCain had to say anything and court the Christian Right in order to get the nomination. That’s understandable. But once he had the nomination, with absolutely no independents who had enough budget, he had the Right. Say what you will about them, they’re consistent- they aren’t going to vote for a liberal Democrat, and they’re not likely to stay home on Election Day. He did not need to court them any longer, so long as he didn’t flip them the finger they were his.

The election was easy pickings from that point on. Then he chose Palin, and she was the cast iron statue in the back of a canoe.
The reasons:

  1. Sarah Palin appealed to the following people: evangelicals, ruralites, social conservatives, small towners, “fly over folk”.

THESE PEOPLE WERE ALREADY HIS! There’s no way in hell they would have supported Obama. Without even alleging racism, they never would have voted for a pro-choice candidate who’d attended a radical church and was deemed one of if not the most liberal man in the Senate. MCCAIN DID NOT NEED TO COURT THIS VOTE- IT WAS HIS.

Who he should have gone after: a moderate Republican from the northeast or the West Coast. Giuliani, Olympia Snowe, Duncan Hunter… hell, be a real Maverick, run with Joe Lieberman, a Democrat Republicans can love and a New England Jewish guy to boot! ANY of these people would have not only gained him fence sitters, but would have maintained the loyalty of his base. Nobody who thinks Giuliani or Snowe or Lieberman is too legal is going to vote for Obama- nobody.

  1. Obama’s most vulnerable gate- the one that McCain needed to take the ram and batter at until it was splinters- the thing that McCain had that Obama absolutely had nothing to compare to- was his experience. He’s a 25 year veteran of D.C., most of it in the Senate, he’s one of the most known brands in the nation, and of course before that the military. THIS WAS THE MOST LEGITIMATE AND MOST VULNERABLE GAP IN OBAMA’S LINES AND THERE WAS JACK THAT OBAMA COULD DO ABOUT IT- he couldn’t wiggle his nose like Samantha and give himself 20 years more experience in the Senate.

So McCain chooses Palin- a politician whose own limited experience COMPLETELY SHORT CIRCUITS his ability to attack Obama’s lack of experience. He spiked the cannons that were in front of Obama’s weakest gate, and for no apparent reason. All McCain’s running mate had to have was just three-frigging years of D.C. experience or 3 years as a governor- damned near every Republican senator or Congressman in D.C. and most Republican governors- and he could have continued the assault on Obama’s experience.

  1. The secrecy: we live in a 24/7 media age.
    Danforth in The Crucible: We burn a hot fire here, it melts down all concealment. Palin’s quarantine makes it look like he’s refusing to let her near the fire of the media- a media fire that for all its supposed bias towards Obama sure as hell didn’t pass up an opportunity to play Jeremiah Wright’s Greatest Hits or the rumors that Michelle Obama may have said something about whiteys and other stuff- and if he won’t let her touch the fire, then she must have some concealment.

Now, we already knew she had a pregnant teenaged daughter, a non scandal that became a major scandal solely because it’s the only thing anybody knew about her due to the media burqua around her. We quickly learned about the firing of librarian and police chief and then brother-in-law-gate- and yet Palin, while all this is going on, is silent.
If she was guilty as sin they should still have let her speak to it; the good thing about the 24/7 media and the people who can’t get enough of it is that they are silly and fickle and have the attention span of a gnat with Alzheimer’s. They’d have moved on and forgotten about it almost immediately, but even though they forgot about the librarian- they remembered the strange silence.

Now again, the evangelicals and the flyovers- they’re NOT GOING TO VOTE FOR OBAMA. PERIOD. They’re also not likely to be concerned about a pregnant teenaged daughter (which I can’t imagine cost her any votes). But the independents, the fence sitters, the people I honestly think McCain kept on forgetting were the all powerful people he should be courting- enough were turned off when every vote counted in the battleground states.

  1. The above and more all show bad judgment. Really bad judgment. Really really bad judgment. He spiked his cannons at the enemies most vulnerable gate and deployed his most powerful forces to fill a gap that wasn’t there.

===================

There’s more of course and you know about them- the lack of vetting, the obsession with Ayers, etc., but…

Do you think he’d have won if he’d chosen anyone (within reason) other than Palin? (And where can I send Palin a thank-you card and maybe a Hickory Farm sausage or something?)

2

All your saying is McCain under party pressure ,made a very bad choice for VP. Also that he ran a very bad campaign. Hardly seems the stuff we want our presidents to be made out of, does it?

3

No. Just being a Republican in this time of economic crisis was a huge anchor on his campaign. People wanted change, especially in the last month. McCain had an almost insurmountable task to win this election. Not to mention that Obama ran a brilliant campaign. The VP choice is such a marginal issue, and there were bigger fish to fry this time around.

4

The economy made it unwinable.

5

I beg to differ.

6

The Palin choice was the only thing he got right.

He was screwed from the get go. He had snubbed his conservative base too long to earn even their support and spent his entire campaign taking them for granted and worrying about the independents and undecideds. Never had a chance at garnering any support from the Dems. Was carrying Bush around on his back. Financial market tank. Iraq war

All adds up to never had a chance.

One may ask how he ended up winning the primaries? My guess would be cross over voters picking the weakest horse in the race, but that’s just my cynical side showing through.

7

No. Palin was the only burst of energy his campaign ever had. Without her it would have been Dole/Kemp all over again. His campaign would have been declared DOA immediately after the convention.

8

It was always Obama’s election to lose. The Palin pick however made it almost impossible that he would lose. Undoubtedly one of the most stupid moves in US electoral history.

9

I continue to be amazed by the anger this woman generates in some quarters. It’s like listening to hard-core conservatives going on about Hillary.

10

Having watched McCain’s concession speech, I have to say that, if that were the McCain we’d seen on the campaign trail, it would have been a helluva lot closer election.

11

The Palin pick saved his campaign from total destruction. Aside from her popularity (she remains wildly popular among Republicans), what she did was save McCain from bankruptcy. She totally turned his fundraising around - she brought in 9 million dollars in the first three days after her pick, which is Obama-territory fundraising ability. The money kept coming in right up to the end.

So even if McCain had made a ‘safe’ pick like Tom Ridge, he would have had no money with which to compete.

The misjudgment McCain made, and which he admits, is that he didn’t anticipate the amount of savagery that would be directed at Palin. I have never, ever seen a political figure ripped at like that before. Not even Dan Quayle or John Edwards. That was a surprise. It’s clear that Palin, just being who she is, pushed a lot of hot buttons with a lot of people. But even so, she was a net plus to the campaign. Palin kept the focus on McCain for a long time, during which he had the opportunity to recapture the support of the public, and he almost did it. He was beating Obama in the polls when the financial crisis hit.

That’s what sunk McCain’s campaign. Not only was he going to be punished by being part of the parter in power when the crisis hit, but his reaction to it really blew it for him. Not only did he behave rashly, but he immediately stepped out in support of the bailout which did a lot of damage to his support in the party. Obama stayed cool, and I think that was the moment when he beat McCain, because that was the moment when he looked more Presidential, and that was the breakthrough he needed to make people trust him.

Had the financial crisis waited another month to hit, we might have been talking about a President McCain today. Maybe not - Obama ran a great campaign - but it would have been a lot closer.

12

Sampiro has eloquently summed up my own view. Palin was a huge, huge risk. She could have paid off handsomely, had she proved to be articulate and intelligent. An attractive conservative woman with kids, married to a man with Native American heritage? It could have been devastating for the Democrats. Had Palin come across as being of presidential caliber, Obama would probably have been screwed.

But of course, Palin does not come across as being of presidential caliber. How McCain’s people missed that during the vetting process escapes me.

My sense is that Romney gave up prematurely. But I wasn’t following the details of the campaigns back then, so I’d back off that assertion in the face of contrary evidence.

13

I mostly agree with the OP except the financial crisis pretty much guaranteed we were going to get a Democrat. Plus, the pendulum has been swining that way since 2006 anyway. The election wasn’t “McCain’s to lose”, but he certainly would have had a MUCH greater chance without Palin. I can’t tell you how many people (including myself) I’ve heard say, ‘I like Obama, McCain, and Biden, and HATE Palin.’ Every fence-sitter I know went strong-Obama after the Palin pick.

14

Conservatives have to realize the campaign wasn’t about winning the conservative vote. It was about winning a majority of the American vote. Elections aren’t about winning over the party faithful; they’re about winning over independents and swing voters.

And Palin was a net loss for the Republicans. For every conservative vote she may have gained, she cost the ticket two moderate votes. And money making was not a plus either - the Obama campaign consistently was pulling in much more contributions

15

Every Republican I know of who decided to vote for Obama cited Palin as a major reason for the shift.

16

Palin was a gamble that didn’t pay off.

However, don’t forget that the only reason McCain made such a gamble was that he didn’t think he could win otherwise. If he had chosen a boring running mate, he would have lost just the same.

There may not have been a winning choice for McCain. McCain needed Obama to slip up, but he never did. Instead, he ran a nearly flawless campaign, and dealt masterfully with issues that by all rights should have buried him (for example, his preacher screaming “God Damn America!” once every 5 minutes on every news network).

17

I don’t think Palin was foremost in people’s minds at all when they were voting. It was the economy, plain and simple. The economic crash destroyed all chances of McCain winning.

18

It wasn’t but a few weeks ago that i remember reading on this forum (not the OP, mind you) about how unimportant and insignificant a VP choice is. I think that still holds true here. Sure, McCain’s age and health concerns brought his choice more skepticism, but this wasn’t exactly a close race. With all the results in, do you really think that a different VP pick would have swung this election by 80 electoral votes? I’m not convinced. I think this election was clearly Obama’s to lose.

19

Nah. History was on Obama’s side. McCain’s VP would have made no difference at all.

20

This. Sam Stone is on to something, here. People needed to trust the person who replaced Bush, and McCain did not adequately demonstrate worthiness of that trust. Obama did.