Yeah, with both of them. Sampiro’s point is that McCain needed to widen his base, not deepen it.
And my point was that without money, he couldn’t reach out to anyone.
So you’re saying that Palin helped him reach the heights of a 2-1 Electoral College smackdown? What does that tell you? She helped him raise money to get his message out, and this was how that message was received? He might have done better if he hadn’t gotten his message out, because it wasn’t one the voters wanted to hear.
What does it mean that “he didn’t anticipate the amount of savagery that would be directed at Palin”? If he couldn’t figure out that an untested woman with 18 months in a backwater governorship, beset by scandals, and with only a few years of running a small town before that, might present huge problems to a 72-year-old cancer victim running on “experience,” then how good a leader do you think he was? He fucked up the only decision that was clearly his, and his alone, to make.
Palin’s a brain-dead ninny, and I only wish she had gotten half of the abuse and derision she deserved. No, I take that back: I also wish the Republican Party will follow your lead and nominate her for President in perpetuity, so we can treat future elections as ceremonies in which the worst Democratic candidate will run up landslide victories for the rest of my lifetime. Then maybe we’ll have time to fix some of the disastrous policies Bush has bequeathed to us.
Well, don’t forget the boner McCain pulled when he went to broker the bailout. that was horribly conceived and executed.
However, to the OP. The other thing is that McCain and the Republican’s don’t “get” the internet. Sound bites on the evening news don’t last because a lot of people out there go to You Tube to see the real thing. Fact check torpedos the whoppers that are told.
But I think with a qualified woman, McCain might have had a shot. A lot of my always hold your nose and vote republican president friends admitted that Palin was the deciding factor.
And I would argue that Palin is wildly popular with the moral majority faction of the Republican Party ONLY. The Pubs are going to have to make a choice to stop pandering to the moral majority and go more centrist, or continue to erode their real base. IMHO the moral majority are not the Republican base but the swing voters that Reagan et al managed to pull over. To continue pandering will translate into the Pubs shrinking. The Pubs are going to actually become the party for smaller government and fiscal responsibility (instead of lip service to the same) to pull the center a little right.
No, that was a HUGE boner McCain pulled, a gigantic diamond-cutter of an erection he grasped firmly and eagerly in his hand, no question about it.
But he can claim that it wasn’t a boner of his own making, that the economy just blew up in his face, as Sam Stone implies. Poor, poor pitiful John McCain–if only the economic disaster had waited a few more weeks, we might have been able to elect John McCain because we couldn’t quite be certain how clueless and ineffectual he would be in dealing with economic issues. My point was the Pubbies (as viz. Sam) can claim that the economy is a force external to the McCain campaign and he coped with it as best he could have, but that the Palin pick was TOTALLY his to make, and so was the best look into his wretched decision-making process.
Country first, my ass. He was a despicable party hack who made a cynical, purely political choice solely to win an election, recklessly risking the nation’s interests for the sake of his own electoral advantage.
Karma’s a bitch (especially when she is on your ticker)!
The VP pick usually doesn’t matter, and I’m going to say that here. The economy tanking old school 1929 style is a sure election in the shitter for Republicans. McCain probably could not have recovered. Palin got a lot of attention in a positive way among McCain’s base, and they would have stayed at home without her.
They would not have voted for McCain, much less McCain/Leiberman: they hate Leiberman more than the Democrats do. Palin did manage to get Obama a bunch of conservative endorsements from the kind of bozos who think that losing is better than selling out. They misunderstand that politics is all about selling out for the best price. They will have four to eight years to think that over. This is the senile Al Davis football philosophy brought to politics: Just Win Baby has changed to Just Throw Your Weight Around Baby. You can’t do squat without controlling the agenda, and the President and the Bully Pulpit control the agenda.
You are so lucky to have never seen a person ripped more in the press. Poor Sarah with her clothes and low intelligence and winks! Had you been paying attention, you would have seen Hillary ripped in the press: rumors of lesbian affairs, rumors of having offed Vince Foster, rumors of straight affairs, accusations of racism, accusations of ambition and God knows what else. Between Hillary and the Queen of England running the Illuminati I cannot imagine who you think Sarah Palin got ripped badly or unfairly.
What he didn’t anticipate is that Palin couldn’t get through an interview looking like a competent politician. I have never seen a political figure look as stupid as she did, as quickly as she did. She looked like a game show contestant.
Coming from a former Republican, NO. The Palin pick put emphasis on the foaming aspects of the party that have not only repulsed a nobody such as myself but the very people who can likely come up with ideas and leadership within the party and help generate a compelling platform- one that isn't the Not Obama.
Yes, Palin energised and extended McC's ability to appeal to her supporters, but she also severed the party and gave opponents greater resolve in his defeat.picking palin took a major campaign point off the table. no matter what he said, or she said, the experience argument was off the table.
then the way he responded to the economic crisis… put it 6 feet under.
if he had picked ridge, or someone like him he would have kept experience on the table. and it would have been much closer… the economy and his responce is what put the hole in his boat.
I consider myself a moderate republican with a big streak of independent thrown in for good measure.
When I had first heard of the Republican choice for VP was the female governor of Alaska, had 5 kids, knew how to hunt, etc. I thought, “Wow what a great pick! I am amazed the the pubs would do this. A woman VP, great!”
And then we started to figure out who she was.
The only reason I voted for Obama last night was I didn’t want Palin to end up being president if McCain died.
Palin in charge scared the hell out of me.
In other words, you put country first. Congratulations.
And thanks.
I was reading your post, nodding my head a bit, and interested in what you were saying.
And then this one sentence, you lost me. It cannot possibly agree with anyone who thinks Palin has been the most ripped into politician. I just can’t.
Neither can I. And I think, in spite of her vainglorious fancies, we’ve heard the last of Sarah Palin.
It was a sliver of honor and integrity and a glimpse of what McCain use to be, I agree completely.
My wife has never voted for a Democrat for President in her life, until this election. Her reason for not voting for McCain was a combination of his age and the possibility of Palin succeeding to the Presidency.
Selecting Palin was the last straw for me as well. Out of all the Republican candidates, McCain was by far my preferred candidate. Had he picked a moderate Republican such as Tom Ridge, I would have had a much more difficult decision to make. Selecting Palin turned me off completely and made my decision easy.
Absolutely. At most Palin may turn up in the 2012 primaries, but she’d be a distant also-ran.
Did anyone else notice the cacophony of boos rained on Palin last night during McCain’s concession speech? I felt bad for her … she was just way out of her depth.
EDIT: Also, going forward, the RNC is going to do their damnedest to never run someone as old as McCain again (not that they can completely control it). The 2012 Republican nomination is Bobby Jindal’s to lose if Obama shows any vulnerability. Otherwise, Jindal waits until 2016.
The biggest problem for McCain in this election was that he was competing against Barack Obama, who became a phenomenon because he struck a chord with a huge number of people and had an incredibly effective campaign organization. The second biggest problem for McCain was the economy tanking over the last two months. Palin probably comes in third after that: he lost conservatives and independents with that pick and it turned a closer race into a blowout as they moved toward Obama or stayed home. With a different pick, he’d still have had to deal with the other two factors - and each on their own might’ve been too much to overcome. There’s also the issue of Bush’s unpopularity, which hurt McCain and restricted his campaigning options. I think he probably would’ve lost even if he’d picked Lieberman or Romney or the other potentials.
McCain was aiming to take over from a sitting President of his party.
Normally this is a huge advantage - but look at how little Bush appeared at McCain’s side - or even campaigned for him.
And when the ‘saintly, beloved’ Dick Cheney endorsed McCain, it was used as a recruitment ad for Democrats.
Maybe you were watching a different campaign. 
Palin was accused of:
- inexperience
- not being able to answer any reporter’s questions
- being a Creationist
- having some unresolved scandals
All true. And at Democrat rallies, there were cries of “she’d be a disaster as President”.
Obama was accused of:
- associating closely with terrorists
- being a Muslim
- swearing the oath on the Koran
- not being American
All lies. And at Republican ralliies, there were cries of “kill him!”.
Did you spend 1998 in a cave?
Not to mention, you’re mistaking ridicule for savagery, and these are very different things. When even her defenders are chalking up being governor of the state nearest to Russia as foreign policy experience, and being governor of the state with the biggest oil revenues as energy expertise, you can’t expect people who aren’t in her corner to do anything but make fun of her.
“I can see Russia from my house!” was her tag line in the minds of millions of Americans, even if they knew Tina Fey was the one who said it.
You’re complaining that people called a spade a spade. I recommend that you get over it.