Republicans screwed up by nominating McCain

[Quixote1818]

When you look at the enthusiasm gap between Obama and McCain it's clear the Republican base will not be energized this fall. The only chance Republicans had was to bring in someone who was far right who would bring out the base. Those in the middle are not going to vote Republican this time around no matter who the Republican is so what may occur is McCain getting slaughtered. He will lose independents, moderate dems and some moderate republicans to Obama and the lethal blow will be the base staying home. Republicans probably didn't have much chance at all this year but when your base is not energized you are screwed and the possibility for a landslide is possible. With a landslide comes a bigger Democratic Senate and Congress along with local elections across the country. Unless Obama does something really stupid this should be a huge year for Democrats across the country.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

1. HA HA HA

[skooooo]

2. yup..

Plus there's that 3rd party candidate Barr (?). He'll shave off some points from McCain in some states.

[opihimoimoi]

3. SHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ...Don't Remind them.....LOL

[madrchsod]

4. they made a huge mistake in illinois in 2004

and they are making another in 2008. there`s not a lot of difference between john and alan when it comes to actually showing some signs of coherent thinking....i`m not complaining that they are going with john

[TheCowsCameHome]

5. No matter what happens in Nov., they already lost.

They didn't get Ronald Reagan II, or anything even close.

They got sloppy seconds (or thirds) - and they are having a bad dose of buyers remorse.

[Occam Bandage]

6. Yeah, but who did they have? Mittens is slimy, his Mormonism was a no-no for the base,

his flip-flopping was laughable, and he didn't have any ideas to speak of. Fred Thompson was as lazy as he was ugly. Rudy was a joke: perhaps the only candidate I can recall who crashed to single digits in every state he tried campaigning in. Huckabee was an affable loon.

McCain was the best of a bunch of bad bets.

[Quixote1818]

7. I was thinking about that. They really had no good candidates this time. nt

[tekisui]

43. They got no good candidates because they knew it was a Dem year.

They offered McLame up as a sacrifice.

And are licking their chops to blame the Dems for all the shit that they expect to hit the fan in the coming years.

[TheCowsCameHome]

8. i.e., they got the cream of a bad crop.

Bwahahahahaha, you repuke lowlife fools.

Now suffer with JohnBoy - he's the best you could muster up, eh?

[provis99]

23. no kidding. McCain was the best choice of out of a confederacy of dunces

Who here wouldn't have rather see Obama run against Romney, or Tancredo, or Duncan Hunter, or even Ron Paul?

[comtec]

38. I'm kinda glad mittens didnt get the nod

because i LIKE mittens.
I've known alot of Mormons, and nearly to a person they are all decent people.
hey are faith-ful but also reasonable.
if it had come down to mittens and Clinton I would have actually had to think for a moment about it, before holding my nose and voting Clinton.
The thing is I would not have feared a mittens administration as much as a mcfucked-in-the-head one.
yeah he's gop, and slimy... but he';s SO FAR LESS corrupt that THIS administration, and I think he would have done a half decent job.
not nearly as good a OUR PEOPLE can.. but I don't think it would have been nearly as fearful or as hateful an administration.
that said...

YAY OBAMA!!!!!

I think it should be Obama Kucinich... then things would be O K (^_^)

[DJ13]

9. They know that 08 is a Democratic year

With that in mind, they didnt want to put up anyone who might want to try in 2012.

McCain is a throwaway nomination.

They dont really expect him to win.

[smoogatz]

17. I think that's only partly true.

The Republicans have been the party of denial for the past eight years, and they're still not even close to owning up to the incredible hash they've made of running the country. Others here have pointed out that George Allen was supposed to be the new W, but when that fell through the establishment settled on Giuliani. Remember the Fox news fantasy, repeated over and over, of a death-match between Hillary and Rudy? Giuliani turned out to be too creepy and transparently corrupt even for the Republicans, though, and at that point the choice was realy between the Empty Suit Otherwise Known As Mitt Romney, and Gramps McCain. To everyone's surprise, Romney was even less dynamic and had an even shakier grasp of the issues than McCain. So here we are. But yeah, at this point I think smart Repubs (to the extent that there are any) are pretty much holing on to their cash and thinking ahead to 2012 or 2016.

[WheelWalker]

10. I think McCain is a feint. I expect him to have an "inconvenient"

stroke or maybe go into cardiac arrest, right before their convention, and then we'll see a ringer slipped in to sprint end around to the finish. Maybe Colin Powell.

[Occam Bandage]

12. ...you think they'll murder their own candidate?

[WheelWalker]

24. Now think about this for a minute. First of all, who is the "they?"

They wage war of aggression. They've murdered hundreds of thousands by my thinking. What's not to make sense?

[mrreowwr_kittty]

11. Actually, he was their best possible candidate out of the field.

A war hero with a "maverick" reputation.

And he's a DISASTER!!! :woohoo:

[liberal N proud]

13. It says they are planning on the same dirty tricks they have always used

They are overly confident that they can use every dirty trick to bring in the win. Either by propaganda or criminal actions, they still think they have it in the bag.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

14. The thing is, ALL of their candidates sucked hard enough to bend light.

McCain is probably the least awful of a really awful bunch, and he's a disaster. There was Fred Thompson, the only politician on Earth who looked like more of a fossil than McCain; there was Mittens Romney, who was made entirely of Styrofoam and teeth; you had Rudy Nine-Eleven Giuliani, the cross-dressing serial adulterer; Ron Paul, who's nuts but wasn't into the war so he never had a chance; Mike Huckabee, who's religiously demented but doesn't hate the poor enough so he never had a chance, either; Sam Brownback, who can barely walk upright; Duncan "Chicken and Two Kinds of Fruit" Hunter; and Tom Tancredo, the only person who hates Mexicans more than Lou Dobbs.

What a pack of losers. The fact that McCain was the best of them tells you a lot about the state of the Republican Party.

:nopity:

[Gabi Hayes]

16. be honest....did you just come up with that opening line?

if so, you should be getting paid for writing stuff like that!




how do you nominate for Duzy?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

19. To be honest, it wasn't original...

I just can't remember where I stole it from (a long time ago).

[wishlist]

15. All they have with McCain is desperate attempts to instigate fear of Obama n/t

[AllentownJake]

18. Sacrificial Lamb

After 8 years of Bush they know they are fucked. Why waste a rising star in 2008 on a losing battle when they can hand us all the problems created over the past 8 years and blame it on us in 2010 and 2012?

[Hieronymus]

32. They hand it to McCain because he's old and it's his "turn".

[Juche]

20. Good

My understanding is that it is the radicals on the right who are behind alot of the vote fraud that gave Bush the 2000 and 2004 election. If those radicals are too demoralized to break the law because they hate McCain, then Obama can win this election.

And hopefully when he wins he will get a competent AG to put them all in prison. I want to see Ken Blackwell frog marched to a 'pound me in the ass' federal prison.

Of course that won't happen. In the interest of 'unity' and 'moving on' it is likely that all of the crimes and lies of the Bush administration will be covered up by an Obama administration. I'm still voting for him though.

[nevergiveup]

21. He is the weakest

candidate I have seen in my lifetime and I am old. From me he gets one half of one star. Dole and Goldwater with one star and Mondale and McGovern with two stars. McCain is a Neanderthal candidate but having said all of this I am reminded that Chimpy won twice and only two Democratic nominees have broken 50% of the popular vote since 1944.

[Barack_America]

22. The best of those willing to waste "their chance" on this hopeless year. nt

[ShadowLiberal]

25. I strongly disagree, look at history, & other so called 'true republicans' and their numbers

Don't you remember the numbers that people like Mitt Romney got against Obama and Hillary? They both beat him by over 10%, sometimes by as much as 15% NATIONALLY.

History also shows that the votes lost from a base that doesn't fully trust you, and isn't fully motivated, are usually minimal (only a few percentage points) unless there's a serious third party candidate for them to defect to. The real way to win a general election is appealing to the center.

A strategy of appealing strongly to your base, and just enough to the center to win a 50.1% majority is VERY risky, leaves little room for error, and guarantees a close vote at best if you win. Once it fails and the moderates hate you from being too extreme you lose big, just look at the republicans.

[Major Hogwash]

26. Totally.

Most real conservatives are so dissapointed now, they could shoot Rove!

Hahahahaha!

[Hippo_Tron]

27. In order to understand that, you have to understand Republican primaries

The Republicans don't really have primaries as we know them. They have puppet shows that display a foregone conclusion.

Democratic primaries usually follow a formula of an establishment candidate vs an outsider dark-horse. That dark horse does surprisingly well in Iowa or New Hampshire and either maintains that momentum to get the nomination or the insider makes a comeback and wins it.

Republican primaries don't work like that. First of all, the Democratic Party created the modern day primary system and if it were up to the GOP we'd still do things in backrooms at the convention.

Before 1968 the Republican Party was a coalition of libertarians, wall street, and affluent liberals. The liberals were led by Nelson Rockefeller and the Conservatives were led by Bob Taft, then Barry Goldwater, and then Ronald Reagan. Every year there was an open contest there would be a battle between the two sides. This started with Dewey vs Bob Taft way back in the 40's and continued until 1980. Ike was obviously popular enough to get the nomination easily and Nixon was a consensus candidate between the two factions in both 1960 and 1968 (although in '68 Reagan tried to unite with Rockefeller to stop Nixon but they couldn't agree).

Nixon was able to keep the party together until Watergate, especially with many southerners leaving the Democratic Party and voting Republican. In 1976 the liberal vs conservative battle emerged again when Ford was almost unseated in the primary by Reagan. At this point the conservative wing which was formerly limited to what we would call libertarians today was growing with the beginnings of the rise of the religious right and the influx of southerners into the party. And even though Ford barely pulled it out, his loss to Carter basically handed the party to Reagan. The liberal/moderate wing put up a small fight by running George Bush in 1980 but Reagan crushed him easily.

After 1980, there was basically no more liberal wing of the GOP because they had a conservative governing coalition. This basically consisted of wall street convincing poor and middle class whites that government only helps lazy black people and wall street holding their noses with all the bullshit from the religious right. With immigration we're starting to see an issue where the two sides are actually have substantial conflict but not until now have we really seen that.

Anyway, in the monolithic GOP era, the nominee is basically anointed. There are two types of anointed nominees. The establishment nominee and the seniority nominee. Bush in '88 and Bush in 2000 are the two examples of the establishment nominee. I don't think those require any further explanation. Dole in '96 is the seniority nominee. One becomes the seniority nominee by running at least once before and losing and then finally when there is no establishment nominee and nobody is ahead of you in line, they pick you because it is "your turn".

In 2008 the GOP tried to pick an establishment nominee. Their plan initially was Bill Frist, but that went wayward after the Teri Schiavo fiasco. Then it was George Allen. As we all know, a 30 second video on YouTube ended his career. It's funny because I almost wish Allen hadn't said Macaca and been the GOP nominee in '08. I have a feeling at some point he would've been caught on camera using the n-word to refer to Obama and that would've been the election right there.

Once the candidates were announced, the establishment favorite was Giuliani when they were under the mistaken impression that they could sell a pro-choice candidate to the religious right. Then it was Romney when they were under the impression that they could sell a a Mormon to the religious right because they had nobody else to vote for. For a bit it was Fred Thompson before they realized that he was too lazy to actually run for President. Then it was back to Romney. When all of their attempts to anoint an establishment candidate failed, they reluctantly got behind the seniority candidate, which was John McCain.

Bill Clinton was absolutely right when he said that if the Democrats were Republicans and the Republicans were Democrats it would be Hillary vs Huckabee. Hillary would have easily gotten the nomination because Republicans don't buck the establishment. Huckabee would've ultimately prevailed because Democrats love an underdog that wins with grassroots support. On the Republican side candidates like Huckabee that don't kiss enough ass to the establishment simply don't win. McCain was the same way in 2000 but he made himself acceptable by basically flip-flopping on all of his "maverick" stances.

Given this trend I can give you a good idea of what the 2012 primaries will look like (assuming the unthinkable doesn't happen). Huckabee is going to spend the next four years kissing ass so that he can stand a decent chance next time. Lamar Alexander, who ran in 1996 and 2000, will run as the seniority candidate. McCain's running mate, depending on who it is, may run.

[Raine]

37. Very interesting

THANKS for posting it. :thumbsup:

[cloudythescribbler]

28. Let's not count any chickens before they hatch -- AFTER the election, sure, if we win, GLOAT (kvell)

It looks awfully close, and I remember well 1988, when Dukakis looked like a shoo-in. None of the Repukes looked any good to me, but then again, there's no way I'd ever vote for any of them against ANY of the Democrats INCLUDING HILLARY. I hope Obama creams 'em, but it's our job to MAKE SURE THAT HE DOES AND NOT GET OVERCONFIDENT

[windbreeze]

29. Nope....they did exactly what they intended...but McCain is too old to understand...

they are using him...period...wb

[TheKentuckian]

30. They did

the best they could. McCain was about the only option they had that had anything much above a 0% chance. Giuliani had a puncher's chance but of course there was no way in hell he would ever make it through the primary process.

I believe the "Maverick" label is one of the only things keeping McCain from completely imploding right out of the gate. None of the true dyed in the wool neocons could even pretend to have a shot, the Republicans would be better off rolling Dole out again than to show their true colors.

[JI7]

31. Huckabee was their strongest candidate

Huckabee could have made a case on the economy. he did well among young voters. he would have kept the conservative base that doesn't like McCain. problem with Huckabee was that "wall street" Republicans didn't like him and would probably rather lose than win with him.

[hokies4ever]

33. They couldn't run on a platform of "October surprise" with Huckabee

Plus Huckabee has gone on record saying that it's wrong to demonize Obama. It's clear that's the only chance the Republicans have.

[Dark]

34. Looking back, I think you're right. He had charm, a genuiness about him.

He could have shored up the evangelicals, would have boasted governor credintials and would have claimed washington outsider in a change election.

[TheDonkey]

36. Obama would be winning on Iraq and Terrorism handily over Hickabee

and he would not be able to top Obama in the economy or health care.

[TheDonkey]

35. Who would have been better? Ghouliani? The entire republican party is in shambles.

they had no choice.

[quaker bill]

39. Their mistake

was in the assumption that Hillary would be the nominee. John McCain was far better suited to a match with Hillary. He ran as the proported stronger candidate against Hillary. I still think he would have lost, but his resume strength was selected to run against an "experience / strength / fighter" candidate. He was not a good selection to run against a "values / judgement / inspiration" candidate, particularly one with the added dimensions of "youth / energy". I don't know that they ever had a truly good match for Barack in the mix either, but a younger and more ideologic based candidate (Huckabee or Romney) would have been a better match, strength for strength.

[union_maid]

40. They had one guy and they wouldn't let him run

If Chuck Hagel had run I would have been real worried. He's great on the war but I don't want to know about his domestic agenda. However, they decided to elect Mitt. Everyone agreed except the voters. So, they got the one that people found least disgusting. A ringing endorsement if ever there was one.

[old mark]

41. Who else did they really have?

Trent Lott?
Huckelberry?
MITT? Who would vote for somebody named Mitt ?

Maybe they should run Buchanan.

mark

[Apollo11]

42. Republicans LOVE it when we think like this

If I had a nickel for every time I had heard or read "Gore can't lose" (2000), "Kerry can't lose" (2004), "Obama can't lose" (2008) ... :eyes:

[Vinca]

44. Sadly, they still own the voting machine companies.

You don't need enthusiasm when you own the voting machines.