To me, McCain did not present as a particularly appealing national candidate last time around. I bring this up in the context of the current election of course. The McCain campaign was for real, it just lost big.
I’m not sure how to objectively measure relative ‘appeal’. Romney strikes me as a little more, um, charismatic than McCain, but without quite the dignity. Santorum is consistent I guess, but strikes me as far nuttier. Both current candidates seem less experienced in government v McCain.
What’s the case for/against any of the current candidates being significantly better than McCain, and therefore more capable of competing against Obama?
Well, they’re both younger. McCain’s age was kinda pushing it regarding how old one can be and still plausibly make a Presidential run. And both Romney and Santorum have better running mates (yea, I know).
But other then that, I don’t think either is as good a candidate as McCain was. McCain had decades of gov’t experience, was a well known figure even before his 2000 run, the media loved him, he had a powerful personal story, was good in front of the cameras, had been a favoured spokesman for the GOP on talk shows and the like, etc, etc. None of those things are true for the likely GOP candidates.
If Romney or Santorum win, it will be because of people’s feeling about Obama rather then because the GOP candidate is particularly compelling.
Two reasons McCain did not get my vote: 1) Palin and 2) (MOST important) AGE!
If he were to run now, he’s gotten older, so still not vote from me. All I was picturing was him dying in February 2009 and Palin taking over!!! Now, if he had Romney as a running mate, that would not nearly be as bad as a Palin trying to pretend to do work, but I’m all Obama anyway.
I think McCain is a fantastic guy and a perfect candidate for the pubs and maybe for the WH. I just wish he was in his sixties.
I honestly think there should be an upper age limit to the presidency.
On the other hand, McCain seems to still be alive and in decent health, so saying he was too old is wrong in hindsight. Unless he drops dead of old age before next January.
What I think Romney has over McCain and Santorum and President Obama as well is the executive experience. Senators just seem to want to have committee meetings and talk about stuff and are real hesitant to make decisions. While we don’t want our president just to shot from the hip you can’t sleep on very decision.
And as far as the age thing goes we have to seriously consider electing some older presidents. They have a pretty nice retirement package and we are going to be paying for a long time with Clinton, Bush 2 and Obama. Age was just one more check mark in the plus column for Ron Paul.
He also hasn’t had the stress of being president for the past 3 years. He would certainly look much worse right now, and probably feel worse, dealing with the bailouts & banks, withdrawal from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Europe’s markets, etc. Since he doesn’t have to even think about the presidency anymore, I wouldn’t be surprised if he looks better not than he did for any period between 2000 and 2009.
How long they will collect retirement benefits seems like it should be way, way down on the list of priorities in selecting a president. And for this election you can no longer claim that Romney’s executive experience is superior to Obama’s.
I think McCain was a very good candidate for the GOP; I voted for him in the '00 primaries. The problem with his '08 campaign was two-fold: he abandoned his moderate, “renegade” image and lurched rightward to attract the conservative base (who would have voted for him anyway once he was the nominee), and he picked a woefully flawed running mate who made Dan Quayle look like George Will.
Romney is making the same mistake - repudiating his earlier moderate positions to kiss up to the right wing. Which as McCain discovered, is necessary to win the nomination. But unless he moves back to the middle quickly and convincingly, which is unlikely, he’s not going to beat Obama.
Maybe if they were all competing in 2008. Right now the only two people on the planet with more executive experience at being PotUS than Obama and still eligible for the office are H. W. Bush and Carter. No Republican candidate is going to try to attack Obama on the “executive experience” angle, especially since for all the hype it doesn’t seem to resonate with voters. Where senators struggle in getting elected is that they tend to create a voting record which will inevitably contain something they had to compromise on and that gets them attacked by their own base.
They get the same pay as a Cabinet Secretary after they leave office. It’s less than 200k a year. Certainly a package I’d love to have, but hardly even a drop in the Federal budget. Most of their money comes from speaking fees.
You’re right that being president is a stressful job, but you haven’t a jot of evidence that his health would have been compromised. I’m no fan of McCain, but I’d like to see some evidence that the strain would have been too much for his health. Romney is 65; should he, too, be disqualified on the grounds that he’s too old? That’s a pretty stressful job for an old man, after all.
Well, we didn’t know the future in 2008, so I’m not sure what actually happened to McCain really matters regarding his electibility v. Romney. A 72 year old man is far more likely to run into health problems/die over a four year period then a 65 year old man. Looking at an actuarial table, McCain had a 15% chance of dying in his first term and a 35% chance of dying over two terms. The same numbers for Romney would be .5% and 1%.
Add the differences in the chances of a serious health issue developing over a four or eight year period, and I think the arguments are pretty decent that being over 70 during at the beginning of your first term should at least factor into peoples decision to vote for you.
And that’s the average. McCain also has had a history of health problems, including several cases of melanoma and other skin cancers, as well as the illnesses and injuries he suffered as a POW in Vietnam. OTOH, he did show off a good bill of health during the 2008 campaign.
Romney. McCain would have gotten my vote in 2008 if it came down to it (as in, I couldn’t vote for Obama), but the only substantial difference between Obama and McCain’s candidacies is that DADT would still be in force and Osama bin Laden would still be alive. Possibly would have been a war in Iran already too.
You’re right about Obamacare. McCaincare would have been even further to the right in making sure that the number 1 winner of insurance reform was the insurance companies.
DADT and Osama Bin Laden are the two things that spring to my mind immediately when thinking about how the world would be different with McCain as president as well.
Neither Romney nor Santorum hold a candle to McCain. He’s more of an old school Republican. Lots of class and capable of rational thought and compromise.
They get the same pay as a Cabinet Secretary after they leave office. It’s less than 200k a year. Certainly a package I’d love to have, but hardly even a drop in the Federal budget. Most of their money comes from speaking fees.