Quin, I share a lot of your problems with the McCain campaign,
and I, too, was a fierce critic of his reaction to the financial
crisis. I thought he lost the race with his suspension, which
will be looked back at as one of the greatest blunders in the
history of presidential politics. With that said, I'm going to
defend McCain a little here. Republicans came into this race with
the odds way against them, and he had to pay for the mistakes of
President Bush. Despite this, he was very much in this race until
the biggest financial meltdown, arguably, since the Great
Depression. No Republican could have won under these conditions.
Perhaps he could have made it closer, but that's about it. Also,
I would argue that a lot of the bad decisions he made, in part,
were caused by a need to distance himself from Bush or inoculate
himself from other Republican liabilities.
I would add, too, that by promoting the idea that McCain somehow
blew the election, it underestimates the political talents of
Barack Obama. Here's a guy who a lot of conservatives thought had
no chance of beating Clinton, and he pulled it off, and then he
was able to win over her voters, and overcome his primary
problems with working class voters. I've been going to Obama
campaign events since March 2007, and have attended dozens of
them, and he has shown extraordinary growth as a politician. His
ability to adapt to circumstances and make everything sound
moderate and reasonable to those who don't parse his words and
look into his record, is quite remarkable. And yes, he had the
whole media on his side.
To be sure, I agree that McCain could have run a much better
campaign. But I think it would be a mistake for conservatives to
come out of this election thinking that they would have won, if
only McCain wasn't a crappy candidate.
