12 Reasons Why McCain Lost: A Retrospective Look at the 2008 Presidential Campaign (John Kerry, Al Gore)

[Ever Adrift]

Now that the election is well past over, I thought it would be interesting to analyze the top 12 reasons why I believe McCain and his campaign destroyed his chances of winning the presidency:

1. McCain's comments earlier in the year, during the Repulican Primaries, that economics was simply something he didn't understand all that well -- this become particularly damaging once the economic crisis began. He never recovered from the perception that he didn't have a good grasp on the economy. The fact that people who attended the meeting with McCain, Obama, Bush and the Congressional Leadership all agreed that McCain was largely quiet during the meeting while Obama was very talkative didn't help, either. Nor did it help McCain when, in the early month of the economic criss, his top economic advisor said the economic crisis was largely in the minds of US citizens. As the economc crisis took a turn for the worse, this made him look incredibly out of touch.

2. The Campaign Suspension. Suspending his campaign because of the onset of the economic crisis certainly didn't help matters any; it came off as something of a hail mary pass. I believe Obama's response to it ('that a president is going to have to be able to multi-task') was particularly damning for McCain. Furthermore, it was an obvious political ploy; the media quickly brought it to the publc's attention that McCain didn't serve on any of the relevant Senate Committees or Subcommittees that were addressing the economic problem. There were also accusations that McCain's interference would inject presidental politics into an already tense political situation. To make matters all the worse, it was McCain's party which initially brought the bailout to a standstill, making McCain look ineffective. Additionally, whether or not it was actually the case many people saw this suspension as a really cheap way to try to back out of the first debate with Obama. McCain's statement that he wouldn't debate if a bailout bill wasn't completed beforehand was incredibly unpopular, reinforcing this image. So unpopular, in fact, that McCain went to the debate when the bailout failed to be finished anyway.

3. McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his VP. This came off as another hail mary pass; a political act of desperation that brought into question McCain's judgement and his claims to be placing 'country first.' Sure, Palin reinvigorated the base but lets face facts, the base was going to vote for McCain no matter what, they didn't need to be enthusiastic about it. McCain needed to pick a VP that appealed to moderates, not to evangelicals who always vote Republican. Indeed, this leads to point three which is:

4. Sarah Palin energized the evangelicals! After 8 years of Bush a raucous evangelical base, I believe, scared a lot of moderates. After Sarah Palin came on board it became increasingly common to hear extremely hateful threats and insults aimed at Obama screamed at her political rallies (remember the crowd screaming things like 'Muslim,' 'lynch him' and 'traitor'?). This stuff may play great in some areas, but it turns off moderates. The woman who was given a microphone by McCain and then proceeded to call Obama an arab, forcing McCain to take the microphone back and denounce her certainly didnt help.

5. McCain's second debate performance. While I don't think McCain id particularly well in any of the debates (with the exception of the first hour or so of the last debate where he was clearly doing better than Obama), the set up of the second debate was very bad for him. It really drew attention to how much older and 'tired looking' he was compared to Obama. Of course, this shouldn't be relevant in choosing a president, but in reality voters look at these things (too many voters have too little understanding of policy issues!). McCain's strange, and very bad, choice to walk around while Obama was speaking instead of sitting as Obama did when McCain spoke stands out; it provided endless fodder for the late-night talk shows.

6. Joe the Plumber! If used only once or twice Joe the Plumber may have been endearing, but the fact that Joe the Plumber (and Tito the Builder, and Ann the Nurse, and... and..) seemed to become the central message of the campaign in the final weeks as the economy went to hell in a handbasket was absolutely astounding! No one wants Joe the Plumber making policy! It certainly didn't help when independent think tanks crunched the numbers and discovered that not only was Joe a liar but he would have benefited more under Obama's tax plan than McCain. It also didn't help when Joe opened his mouth; saying you want to abolish Social Security isn't going to win you many votes.

7. Pennsylvania. McCain's choice to focus his campaigns attention primarily on Pennsylvania in the last weeks of the campaign was a terrible move. This is a relatively solid Democratic state in what everyone believed was going to be a Democratic year; Obama was leading by double digits when the McCain campaign made the decision. He would have done better to focus efforts in the western states he lost (Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado), in Virginia, in North Carololina and in Florida. Of course, I believe that by the time the decision to focus on Pennsylvania was made he had already all but lost the campaig.

8. The lack of a clear and stable message. Everyone knew that Obama stood for change, even if they weren't sure what that meant, precisely. No one really knew what McCain stood for; they kept changing their message before any particular one had a chance to sink in.

9. Pork Barrel Projects. If you learned anything from the McCain campaign, it was that John McCain absolutely hated pork barrel spending and wanted nothing more than to elimnate it. Unfortunately for McCain, while important, pork barrel spending is about the least sexy political issue there is. Additionally, most people have no clue what it even is. Why, then, did McCain continually bring it up as a major platform issue for his campaign? Sure, we need to reign in spending but pork barrel projects are a negligble part of the budget and eliminating them isn't even going to begin to slow the economic crisis. It simply made McCain look more out of touch and reinforced the view that he didn't have a clue as to how to deal with the economic crisis.

10. Pandering to the base. While this point is already represented in some of the above points, it bares more attention. In 2000 McCain ran as something of the anti-Republican, or at least as someone who was anti-establishment. He was charming and well liked by liberals and moderates. He stood up to his party, denounced the confederate flag and actually did engage in 'straight talk.' Unfortunately for him, Karl Rove ran one of the nastiest smear campaigns in US history against McCain in the South Carolina part, ending McCains chances of beating George Bush. Had McCain won that primary my guess is he would have trounced Al Gore (although I am a huge supporter of Gore!). The McCain of 2008, however, was older and more jaded. He used a lot of the same rhetoric, but it seemed a lot more empty after he had continually compromised his political principles for Bush during the past four or so years. He reneged on his denunciation of radical right-wing groups like Focus on the Family and called Baghdad as safe as New York; he publicly supported Bush (who he apparently loathed in private, and for good reason given the smear campaign Bush ran against him) and he openly pandered to the right wing of his party to secure the nomination. While this, of course, did secure him his party's nomination, it alienated a lot of his more moderate (and even liberal) supporters who he needed to win the general election. Afterwards, he just seemed to be an average politician who'd say and do anything to win; he was not the same McCain we new 8 years ago. It made people lose trust.

11. The War Hero. This is a touchy one, but it is worth discussing. McCain's history as a POW is remarkable and worthy of our utmost respect. It was also a perfectly valid thing to bring up during the campaign; he served his country with more honor than just about anybody else. However, it was brought up so much that it began to lose some of its visceral power; people became increasingly desensitized to it. And when he started invoking it in much the same way that Giuliani invoked 9/11, as an excuse not to answer a policy question or to avoid legitimate criticism, it started to look like a political tool. This is one of the more tragic aspects of McCain's campaign, really, because, like I said, he really does deserve a great deal of respect for his service. Of course, being a POW is not a valid basis on which to run for the presidency; it doesn't automatically make you presidential material and that point seemed to be lost on McCain.

12. Obama's a Socialist! While some believe that McCain's message that Obama was something of a socialist in the dying days of the campaign helped him out, I doubt this. It may have in some communities, but I believe it backfired over all. The problem is that even though 'socialism' still has a negative connotation in this country, in times of extreme economic hardship socialist programs are much more popular than they are in times of economic strength. McCain's claim that Obama wanted to 'spread the wealth' and 'redistribute it' may have workedat first, but once people realized that McCain was really only talking to the wealthiest 5% of the country it started to backfire. When it became clear that Obama's redistributive tax plan meant increasing taxes on the richest 5% to benefit he bottom 95% it made McCain look like he was the candidate for the rich; this is a very bad image to have in times of economic recession. McCain's anti-socialist rhetoric also may have backfired for him once the media drew attention to what, precisely, were the 'socialist' programs advocated by Obama: namely universal healthcare, infrastructure imrovement and more money for college. These are all very popular programs and McCain made a mistake in setting himself up against them. Furthermore, McCain's continual focus on businesses probably lost him some support too; the vast majority of American's don't own business, they work for them and they tend to think that policies should directly benefit them rather than 'trickle down' to them through business.


Well, those are the 12 major ways in which I believe McCain and his campaign ruined his chances of winning. Of course, other factors were in play (Obama's a unique and eloquent individual, we're coming out of 8 years of George Bush who is incredibly unpopular, it was a naturally Democratic year) but these factors were beyond McCain and his campaign's control.

I would conclude from all this, as have many others on both sides of the aisle, that John McCain simply ran a truly awful campaign; it was terribly mismanaged, terribly handled. And before you say that I'm claiming this because I'm a Democrat, I said the same thing about John Kerry's campaign in 2004. Bush, on the other hand, ran a great campaign. I think Mitt Romney would have likely run a decent campaign, too.

[Mike from back east]

Outstanding, and I agree with it all. A few of my own, which may or may not fit in your "12 step program for losing an election."

13. Flip Flops. Months ago in this forum we were trading lists of 60+ known McCain flip flops. For me, his flip/flop on evangelicals was alarming. In the 2000 election he called them, and especially Jerry Falwell, "agents of intolerance" and he was right. Then, this past spring, 3 weeks before Falwell died, John McCain went down to Roanoke and kissed Falwell's ring to seek the favor of the evangelical vote. There were many more flip flops, but this one flip flop showed just how dangerously he coveted winning this election.

14. Exxon and Big Oil. We were paying close to $4/gallon for gas this past summer, you could feel the resentment every time you tanked up. One day Newt Gingrich yells "drill here, drill now" and John McCain seizes on that mantra and overnight he's got millions in donations from Exxon and big oil, gets a photo op on a drill rig and bam, we get John (Wildcatter) McCain. He was seen as siding with big oil, and voters saw big oil, and Exxon's $40B per year annual profits, as our tormentor, not our friend.

15. Lobbyists. For a man running as a maverick, he was the consummate congressional insider. His entire Senate staff and his entire campaign was composed 100% by lobbyists - the very people who have ruined our government with special interest legislation, yet these are the only people he can find as he selflessly and patriotically pursues "the people's business." That's laughable. And total fraud. One of the very worst of the lobbyist breed, Phil Gramm, father of the Enron loophole and other financial abuses that are at the core of our meltdown, was McCain's economic advisor until a public stink about it made McCain fire him. I recall other lobbyists who McCain fired along the way for their smarmy dealings that have cost us dearly.

Can probably think of more if we try.

s/Mike

[Theliberalvoice]

Excellent points.

Very good and very true

[kingtodd]

You are so right in listing the Top 12 mistakes McCain made that cost him the election....I would call them flat out Blunders....He was up against a well-oiled machine....David Plouffe, the guy who ran Obama's campaign was incredibly disciplined and I don't think he gets enough of the credit for Obama's victory....McCain was not only up against BO but against a huge wave of American sickness w/republicans and their leader, George W. Bush....I think Palin should be at the top of that list, though....She really did accelerate the decline for McCain....More like a nosedive..

[graceC]

If I knew how to post a picture of a horse carcass with flies buzzing on top of it, I would. I can't believe you guys are still talking about this topic.

[kingtodd]

Originally Posted by graceC

If I knew how to post a picture of a horse carcass with flies buzzing on top of it, I would. I can't believe you guys are still talking about this topic.

What do you suggest we discuss?

[tangodoodles]

Originally Posted by graceC

If I knew how to post a picture of a horse carcass with flies buzzing on top of it, I would. I can't believe you guys are still talking about this topic.

The post is titled "A RETROSPECTIVE Look" for a reason. We're looking back at the election before the inauguration. If you don't like it then you probably shouldn't have read it.

[notasmoker]

Originally Posted by graceC

If I knew how to post a picture of a horse carcass with flies buzzing on top of it, I would. I can't believe you guys are still talking about this topic.

At first, I thought your horse carcass with flies buzzing image was meant to illustrate McCain's campaign, not the thread! Now that would be fairly accurate.

[Mike from back east]

Here Grace, this is for McCain, beating us to death endlessly by telling us what a maverick he is. NOT.

A Horse Named Maverick
McCain Campaign

[NSHL10]

Biggest reason was the tanking of the stock market. The election was fairly close until then.