Creative, but not allowable. A lot of people in this thread need to back off immediately.
Is it okay for me to say I’d do Jeri Thompson? Because I’d be willing to do Elizabeth Kucinich also to avoid accusations of partisanship.
Don’t we usually wait more than a year or two for historical revisionism? McCain didn’t know he lost until well after selecting Palin because he hadn’t clearly lost until well after he picked Palin. It was his inept handling of the economy crashing that did McCain in. Before that, the race was actually somewhat competitive and picking Palin gave him a boost in the polls.
Besides, McCain was probably aiming for her daughters. He knew Bristol was easy at least…
I doubt that Mc Cain did all that for lusting reasons, at his age it would be unlikely if he can even raise a half mast.
Got any evidence for the boost in the polls? His quote that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong” and his pick of Palin were close enough together in time that it’s hard to say which was responsible for his plummet shortly thereafter.
There was a brief boost in the polls that quickly disappeared and then some; the obvious interpretation is the WTF reaction to incidents like the Katie Couric “gotcha” :rolleyes: interview.
TWEEEEEEEEEEEEET!
Take all the truly dumb speculation regarding Senator McCain’s concupiscent attitudes toward Governor Palin or her daughter to the Pit or e-mail. I don’t mind occasional comments that are not serious in a thread, but those fantasies are, effectively, a hijack and are provoking equally dumb, (and excessively hostile), responses.
[ /Moderating ]
Here’s a graph showing the polling data. That short-lived spike at the start of September, bringing him dead even from fairly far behind, correlated with the Palin pick on August 29th, and came a few weeks after his August 20th “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” statement. The drop off and Obama’s running away with it after that, from mid-September on, correlated with her opening her mouth more.
The Palin pick was a desperate gamble that some of were shocked to see work, even just for the week or so. He figured he had already lost so a Hail Mary pass was worth a crack, and amazingly it was caught. Only thing it was then immediately fumbled and run back for a touchdown.
If memory serves me Palin was announced on the last day of the Dem convention robbing Obama of the convention bounce and taking over all the news while we tried to figure out “Sarah Who”. The timing was excellent, the choice was abysmal.
McCain is a politician in the dirty sense. He has figured out how to draw attention . He is the face of DADT. Every time it hits the news, they show his response. He is the spokesman for the military even though his time was 40 years ago. He is ambitious even at 75 years old. Time for him to step aside and let a few good tea baggers have the stage.
Yep. It’s easy to armchair quarterback these things, and it’s likewise easy to run a campaign when you’re ahead; when you’re ahead, you can just coast on your poll numbers and say “Look at those polls! America likes what I’m saying!” When you’re behind, you have to take risks, and sometimes those risks note that they can see Russia from their house, and then you get blown out of the water in the election.
Damn.
Ah well - my apologies.
Regards,
Shodan
Others linked to the poll numbers I would have. His pick of Palin worked, it was a competitive race after that until further factors did him in. Others mention Palin’s obvious mistakes, but personally I think the thing that really sunk him was the moronic ‘suspend the campaign for the economy, but don’t actually do anything…’ crap.
I think it’s clear that the simplest & most obvious reason is the correct one, for both of these choices: the VP candidate was picked to gain votes from a group where support of the candidate for President was week.
Kennedy picked LBJ to gain support from more conservative Democrats, especially in the southern states. McCain picked Palin to gain support from right-wing conservative voters. It worked for Kennedy; it failed for McCain. Or possibly it did work for McCain in gaining conservative votes, but cost him in that it alienated moderate voters. (LBJ didn’t alienate any significant group of voters; in fact, his reputation as an old-time, experienced pol gained credence for the Kennedy campaign among Democratic party activists.)
This has been the main criteria in picking the VP candidate since about the time of Thomas Jefferson, and is still so today.
A suggestion, Tom: instead of gratuitiously editorializing (and thereby casting a personal opinion in the precise way you’re censuring others for doing), why not simply vote in my poll on the subject, created precisely to avoid hijacking this thread, and simply moderate when you claim you’re moderating?
It would give you the cover of objectivity.
Yet if you look at those same poll numbers “others” 
have linked to you’ll see that by McCain’s 9/23 suspending his campaign because of the economic crisis he was already sinking fast. By then he was ready
to throw another desperate Hail Mary. That one didn’t work at all as everyone saw it for what it was, an attempt to avoid the scheduled debate and to call a time out because he was getting killed. But Palin was already beginning to backfire on him by then. That picked only “worked” for period of maybe two weeks … until she started talking some.
All of which just brings us back to the op - he has not “jettisoned his integrity”, as skammer had put it - he’s never had any. He just used to be able to pretend like he had some better in his earlier days. He has always been a calculating politician; he just can’t add things up so well anymore.
I used to think John McCain was an OK guy until he ran for president. It’s sad to see him so ridged and homophobic. He was always funny and likeable when he visited the Daily Show before he turned into just another grumpy old guy.
I didn’t… and for the record, I just saw this warning.
I just can’t see Palin as a good choice. Several people have described it as a Hail Mary Pass. If so then they’re acknowledging that the McCain campaign was already in trouble.
And I don’t see how announcing a Vice President can turn a faltering campaign around. Suppose Palin had actually been an intelligent well-spoken statesman. Would that have helped get McCain elected? Were people going to decide to vote for McCain in the hopes that he would die and the candidate they liked would become President? If Palin had been the candidate the McCain campaign was hoping for, she would have just created the opposite problem of overshadowing McCain.
Picking a Vice Presidential candidate is incredibly difficult. You don’t want somebody who’ll embarass you by looking incompetent and you don’t want somebody who’ll embarass you by making you look incompetent.
In my opinion, the best choice to make is to pick somebody who is as close to you as possible - go with a philosopy of “vote for me and you’ll get a bonus me in case I die.” Carter did this with Mondale and Clinton did this with Gore. The next best choice is to go with somebody who’s bland but solid - a second man who won’t excite voters but won’t scare them either. Obama did this with Biden and Reagan did this with Bush.
But if you’re trying to use a Vice Presidential candidate to win votes, you’re in trouble because that means your Presidential candidate isn’t winning enough votes. And no Vice President will be able to make up for that problem.
No one has been censured for personal opinions, so you start off with an error.
If I have to read this junk, I feel perfectly justified in commenting on the egregiously dumb stuff that shows up. Weird claims that a septugenarian senator actually picked a middle aged woman, (whom he did not actually know, socially), to be vice president because he was hot on her or her pleasant looking but hardly spectacular daughter, are purely dumb.
I make no claim for objectivity, only that I make an effort to moderate feuds among posters in a contentious forum, so I don’t need a “cover” of objectivity.
If you have more complaints, take them to ATMB.
And as you seem to be making a habit of interrupting threads to complain about my moderating, the next time you do so you will be Warned for persistently violating Mod instructions.
I think you’re over-thinking it.
Imagine you’re John McCain, and you genuinely think you can win a straight match-up against Obama – except for three problems.
One, this Obama guy has a ton of hype and momentum going for him; nobody’s even talking about you, it’s nonstop wall-to-wall HISTORIC this and FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT that – which, y’know, won’t change if you pick Giuliani or Romney or whoever.
Two, the only reason you think you can beat Obama in a non-hype match-up is because your biggest advantage with moderates is your biggest drawback within the GOP: selling yourself as the crosses-party-lines maverick will lower your base’s turnout unless you pick a running mate who shores up internal support. Giuliani is pro-choice and likes gay rights; Romney is a Mormon who passed leftist health reform in Massachusetts; either of them would need a solid-right VP pick to reassure the base when running to the middle as a Presidential candidate.
Three, picking Giuliani or Romney or whoever means your guy will probably lose the debate against Biden, who really excels at getting in eminently quotable put-downs.
Palin nullifies the first and second problem: Obama’s momentum stops cold, such that you can now pitch yourself to moderates on a level playing field without needing to worry about losing your base. And you get the side benefit of nullifying Biden, who’ll now spend his debate trying not to look mean.
It’s still on you to win it on the merits; she doesn’t help you move forward, she just nullifies three disadvantages. But if you think you can win it on the merits, then who’s a better pick?