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The Spectacle Blog
Phil, I give credit to McCain for building up a "brand name" during the past 10 years that made him far more competitive than most other Republicans would have been. But what he did with that brand this year was pathetic. He missed opportunity after opportunity, both negative and positive, and never even put forth a coherent message. And he was a jerk. A flat-out jerk. The economic "crisis" was tailor-made for him to prove that he is the guy to trust in a tough spot, and instead he came off like a panicky, buck-passing, scapegoating, hack. Plus, his almost spur-of-the-meoment choice of Sarah Palin turned off more voters than it turned on. MAYBE, if he and his campaign had done some advance work, Palin might have been more help than hindrance. But they "winged it," and put Palin in a position she wasn't ready for and had not been prepared for -- and it turned off tons of educated white women, exactly the demographic they were actually trying to attract. That, too, was McCain's fault. Too much playing things by his gut like riverboat gambler, not enough calm and steady leadership.
The whole campaign, until the last five days, he was an angry old man. Angry old men lose American elections. The voters adjudged him temperamentally unsuitable for the office, and they were right.
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More Blog Posts by Quin Hillyer
http://spectator.org/blog/2008/11/04/yes-it-was-mccains-fault
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james23| 11.4.08 @ 10:38PM
Wow, someone else is showing some temperament issues.
DC| 11.4.08 @ 10:41PM
Quin, you have bought into the MSM's narrative on Sarah Palin. The exit poll numbers bear this out -- she was a net benefit. McCain did her a disservice by surrounding her with defensive Bushies, but she is certainty strong in her own right.
ruth| 11.5.08 @ 12:12AM
McCain might be temperamental--but you have no idea what is behind Obama's mask. This election was a setup and even then McCain was winning until the economic melt-down. I think this stinks to high heaven.
Bob| 11.5.08 @ 8:45AM
Quin, you almost got it right! However, the problem with McCain was McCain. He is a gambler and erratic. He has always been this way. That's what made his brand as a maverick. Palin has a lot of talent but little knowledge. She was not ready for this position as Gibson and Couric proved. We don't know how bright she is -- she never gave a press conference. DC is wrong on the exit polls (unless you just listened to Fox), they showed that 60% of the voters thought she was not capable of being VP.
That said, I'm not convinced that anyone else had a better chance. After all, most party "seniors" thought that McCain had the best chance. As many people have said, including some notable conservatives, the country could well be moving center left. That is the big problem for the Republican Party.
With the growing black and Hispanic populations, the highly left leaning views of the post-generational young people who really showed up this time, the dying off of the older white Republican faithful, the old Rovian coalition is dead. The intolerance of the evangelical right, the hateful speech of those as we see on this blog, the demonization of people like Obama will doom our party. That turns the party of hope into the party of fear and hate. To be sure, the far left also demonizes, but if you'll notice, it is the growth of moderate Democrats, especially those in the South, that are building the Democratic (notice I added the "ic") party.
Being called a "conservative" is now not a positive as it has been in the past. To the middle, being a conservative means being older, mean spirited, being uneducated and intolerant. Ok, I'm overstating it a bit, but not much.
When I start to see speech of hope and optimism on blogs like this, rather than vitriol, I'll know the Republican party is on the mend.
Now I know people here will be very angry, but without people like Colin Powell and me, Republicans cannot regain a majority -- the numbers just don't add up.
ruth| 11.5.08 @ 3:50PM
It's easier to be an 'anything goes' liberal than a conservative. We set a higher bar for ourselves. Conservatism may not be popular right now but that doesn't matter because it is an immutable ideal. It's up to us to convince others that it is a better way to live. I don't know if it is a lack of conservative leadership or that our country is flaccid that has caused this defeat. Maybe both.
Linda| 11.7.08 @ 1:50PM
Has anyone looked on: AMERICAN THINKER,
The Cloward-Piven Strategy. Everybody I talk with has NEVER heard about it.
Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis. Written by: James Simpson
NOBODY IN THE NEWS MEDIA HAS INFORMED THE PUBLIC!
HELP!!!!!!