How McCain lost

It wasn’t just the economy, stupid.

It’s been a week since a Senator from Illinois made history by becoming the first African American President elect in our nation’s history. In that time there has been much celebrating, his first briefings and the looming task of choosing a staff to help guide our next four years. But what of the other guy, you know, the loser (or first runner up for all you “everybody’s a winner” types). There has been much finger pointing in both the McCain camp and the media. So what really went wrong? Many people blame the economy. While that is certainly a large part of it, it’s not nearly the only reason. As I see it, there were a series of missteps that, even if the stock market hadn’t crashed, would have been tough for McCain to overcome.

You’re doing it wrong (er, backwards)
There are two camps you need to energize in order to win an election: your base and the “independents.” After securing his party’s nomination, while Obama and Clinton were still battling it out, McCain did the unthinkable; he went after the independents. Instead of dragging the Dems through the mud, he tried to play off his reformer image. Then, after Gov. Palin burst onto the scene, that’s when they energized their base. Only problem was, they did the whole thing backwards. Voters have short memories (Hillary supporters for McCain anyone?) and the people the Republicans needed to win the election weren’t being catered to with talk of “crossing the aisle.” Instead, what they were hearing were Palin’s remarks about the “real America” and how she was going to eat the babies of all non-Christians. Not the best way to get undecideds on your side. Speaking of Palin…

Sarah Palin: redneck rock star!
When your VP candidate overshadows almost your every move, getting most of the attention, you’re not only doing it wrong, but someone should take away your privileges of ever doing it again. The VP pick should complement your weaknesses and play a strong, but largely invisible role behind the scenes, drumming up support for you, not themselves. McCain at times was playing second fiddle to Palin, not good.

His dick fingers
Those air quotes that he was using for about a week? The ones that infamously dismissed the “health” of “women?” They helped him “lose” the women “vote.”

Control, you must learn control!
One gets the feeling that somewhere along the way, McCain didn’t seem to agree with how his campaign was managing his image. Whether is was not wanting to bring up Ayers but then doing so anyway, or letting Sarah speak out of turn, if McCain didn’t like how things were being handled, he should have fired them. After all Senator, they worked for YOU. If you can’t manage your campaign, how will you manage a country?

It’s all about the message
Consistency is key. All throughout his campaign (both in the primaries and general), Obama stuck with one mantra: Change. His message stayed constant and by doing so people were easily able to identify what (if not wholly) he wanted to bring to the table. McCain, did not learn from Hilary’s mistake of changing her message whenever there was a change in the polls. One week he was a reformer, the next he was calling Obama a socialist. If something didn’t stick, he went on to the next thing, ad nauseum Keep chning your mind and people get confused.

The great divide
The GOP has basically fractured into two parties: the super social conservative bible thumping values voters and the fiscally minded folks that enjoyed presidents such as Ronald Reagan and Robot Nixon. As always, the nut jobs are louder and as a result demand more of your time. The true conservatives got fed up and some of them jumped ship. Where they’ll land, who knows, keep an eye on what happens to the GOP in the next few years, it should be interesting to see which direction they take.

Mr. 24%
This is perhaps the one obstacle that no Republican could overcome, President Bush. When the incumbent President’s approval rating has been hovering in the mid to low twenties, you can promise unicorns and pots of gold to everyone and still lose. The Dems could have run just about anyone this year and probably have won (though most likely a much smaller margin than what Obama won by).

The monies
And yes, it was also the economy. Calling the fundamentals of our economy strong the day before one of the biggest collapses in the history of our financial sector is not the best way t win over those fiscal conservatives. Just sayin’.

And finally,

He just wasn’t that great of a candidate.
Sorry.