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How bad was the McCain campaign: Relevant comparisons

by Ironman | November 5, 2008 at 8:47 PM
in

Newsweek has done a post mortem labelling the McCain campaign effort among the worst in recent history, even comparing it to McGovern/Eagleton

http://www.newsweek.com/id/167561

The reasons were primarly as per Newsweek a) Palin and b) McCain's failure to be optimistic.

Now I think this is nonsense, pretty much. Had McCain chosen a bland, experienced running mate GOP turnout would have been even more dismal, probably ending another dozen house careers and 2-3 senate careers.  And running "morning in America" in the face of a single digit "right track" number would have been mocked as painfully out of touch and clueless. 

But there's a bigger problem with this thesis. McCain's effort was only mildly subpar compared to its "peer group"

Since 1960, the following candidate have tried to get a third consecutive term for their party.

1960; Nixon 49.5%

1968 Humphrey 42.7% (third party in double digits)

1976 Ford 48%

1988 Bush 41  53.4%

2000 Gore  48.4%

http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/

McCain ran slighly behind the number that Nixon, Ford and Gore had; all of whom were running in better economic times than this year.  He ran ahead of Humphrey, who was saddled with fallout from a far more unpopular war than Iraq, but due to the weird quirks of 1968, nearly won the popular vote and nearly forced the election into the House.  The only candidate of the bunch that stands out is Bush 41, who ran under times of peace and prosperity; had the brilliant Lee Atwater running the campaign; and faced a very weak opponent.

The proximate cause of McCain's defeat was , in my opinion, the Wall Street bailout. In specifics, once he made the call to suspend the campaign he needed--barring such immovable objects as scheduled debates--to get the issue off the burner as soon as possible.

On September 29, McCain left Washington for a rally with Palin in Columbus OH. Now he was going back to OH plenty more---what he needed to do was beg, borrow and plead with House Republicans to pass the bailout bill that afternoon so he could declare the crisis resolved and get back on the campaign trail without having this hang over him. I have no diea if haunting the Capitol building would have squeezed out enough votes--I just know the bill failed in the House, keeping the crisis at full boil for another precious campaign week.  http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/09/29/ (Yes, the bailout was a "crap sandwich"; but McCain had already endorsed getting one passed;  the ship had sailed as far as coming out against it)   

September 29, 2008 was the day John McCain's best chance to become President slipped away. This was one political event that should have been left to Governor Palin to handle solo.  Having gone "maverick" and back to DC,  switching gears to go back on the campaign moved to be a tragic miscalculation for McCain.

The Newsweek article does point out McCain's inability to stay on message as far as policy differences between Obama and McCain.  That observation isn;t very novel and when I sit down and catalog the myriad Mac errors, that will be among them. 

 

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McCain doomed his candidancy...

Submitted by davidfarrar on Wed, 11/05/2008 - 21:40.

...when he supported the "crap sandwich", pure and simple. His ratings with conservatives after the Palin selection were heading upward. From the moment he sold out his conservative base to Wall Street, his campaign was doomed, period. End of story.

           ex animo

 Operation Rednet  

           davidfarrar

 

well, I buy that more than the Newsweek theory

Submitted by Ironman on Wed, 11/05/2008 - 21:55.

But having decided to buy the "crap sandwich", he needed to get it off the damm counter ASAP---even if some GOP House members needed orthopedic work..  The longer it lingered, the worse he was going to look both with conservatives ( bailout's aren't our gig) and moderates (delay does not equal effectiveness).

I am sorry, Ironman...

Submitted by davidfarrar on Wed, 11/05/2008 - 22:18.

...but after buying into the "crap sandwich", the timing was irrelevant. If you will recall, even a majority of McCain's moderates and Independents were telling him not to buy into the "crap sandwich". It was one of those priceless presidential moments when an authentic leader had to step up to the plate and show his stuff. McCain stepped up to the plate only to show us he was a follower, not a leader. From that moment on, he was a walking dead man, politically.

If you will remember also, this was right around the time to took to calling himself a "Teddy Roosevelt" Republican, which didn't help much. And, indeed, after his support of the Wall Street bailout, I never heard him again refer to himself in that manner again, not publicly, anyway.

           ex animo

 Operation Rednet  

           davidfarrar 

 

This was Hobson's choice

Submitted by Ironman on Thu, 11/06/2008 - 19:41.

Obama could bail out and pretend not to be involved. Fairly or unfairly, people expected McCain to take a lead role. Had he opposed the bailout , it certaintly would have failed, since hardly any Republican would think they had "cover" for their vote, and Pelosi & Reid demanded GOP "cover" prior to letting their folks vote for it.

OK. No bailout. McCain gets blamed.  Personally, I don;t think the bailout did anything to slow down the market correction; but unless you think the bailout caused the further market decline and its failure would have stopped it; then Mac would have had a thousand point Dow drop giftwrapped and sent to him everyday on the campaign trail from Team Obama and the MSM. Talking point: "Republican obstructionism is causing the market to meltdown!"

Like I said---Hobson's choice. And not the old Red Sox 3rd baseman 

Yes, I understand, McCain's dilemma

Submitted by davidfarrar on Thu, 11/06/2008 - 21:06.

I never said he had an easy choice, or that there were, in fact, other choices at hand.

What McCain really needed to do was come into Washington and take charge of the situation. He could have simply  declared the present legislation could not be rushed and delayed the process. If the market failed, it was already going to fail. He would not be held ransom by Wall Street, nor would he allow the public to be held ransom by Wall Street. He should have, in short, called their bluff by simply slowing the bailout legislation train down -- which would have been interpreted as a win for McCain, without actually affecting the proposed legislation.  After all, he know, or should have known -- given his 24 years in the Senate -- even if the bailout was approved by that "weekend", it would have taken at least two to three weeks -- as it turned out, it was much longer -- before the first dime was ever actually handed out to any bank.

Further; where was the agreement by the banks to actually use the bailout funds to supply loans to other banks? There was no agreement.  In fact, as it turned out, there was nothing in the bill that would prevent these fiscally irresponsible banks, now getting billions from the government, to use these funds to buy out smaller, fiscally responsible banks who did not need, nor received any of these federal funds.

In short, as most people now have come to realize, this legislation was a rush job, full of holes and dead-ends, something McCain should have used to his advantage if he had the political courage to do so.

Was it a hard decision to make?  Of course, it was. But is wasn't so hard that over 60% of the electorate couldn't come to the right decision at that time, even if McCain could not 

           ex animo

 Operation Rednet  

           davidfarrar

 

on substance, you are right

Submitted by Ironman on Thu, 11/06/2008 - 21:30.

I still think given the circumstances I'd have wanted the bandage pulled off as quickly as possible, thinking I could clean up the wound at leisure later. But Mac got the worst of both worlds---he endorsed the bailout and the issue lingered for a week while the market kept tanking.

Guess they weren't paying attention to my posts in August and early September since they seemed completely blindsided by this

http://www.thenextright.com/ironman/mortgage-hurricane-makes-landfall-taxpayers-swamped

 http://thenextright.com/ironman/more-on-the-mortgage-hurricane

The last week of September promises to be a critical week in American finance and American politics.

Those were very prophetic articles you wrote at that time.

Submitted by davidfarrar on Thu, 11/06/2008 - 23:55.

But least we forget, Pulson is a Democrat. He knew the state of the nation's major lending institutions, or should have known them. I believe I read where he was telling everyone the economy was just fine not two weeks before he proposed the largest govermental bailout in the nation's history. I have always been deeply suspicious of the timing of these events.

In any case, we are discussing a man who may not have been an expert in financial matters, but McCain is certainly an expert in legislative affairs. I don't think it would have been too hard for him to make the case to the public, who by now would have been completely on his side, after all, he was fighting for them, that if the bottom did, indeed fall out, it was the fault of Wall Street,  while other financial experts readied other solutions. I believe around the time of the final House vote, there were at least 400 economists on record stating that the bailout was not only unnecessary, but that it could very well make the problem worse.

As it turns out, McCain wasn't a "Teddy Roosevelt" Republican after all,  just a plain, old, run-of-the-mill politician providing political cover for his colleagues in a time of crisis at the expense of the taxpayer, as my September 26th post indicated.

           ex animo

 Operation Rednet  

           davidfarrar

 

Newsweek apparently knows

Submitted by T D Williams on Thu, 11/06/2008 - 02:03.

Newsweek apparently knows nothing about the Real Clear Politics site nor can track when McCain was leading in the polls and when Obama started to pull away.

Sheesh.  You would think those guys could do some homework.

McCain was rising or above Obama in popular support from September 4th to September 17th.  Why was that?  Was there anything different in his campaign from pre-September 4 events or positions?  Maybe a VP candidate?

Newsweek may not have the same access to daily news that I have.  What happened on September 16th?  The Federal Reserve gave $85 billion to AIG.  And on September 19?  Beginning of the talks on the $800 billion to $1 trillion bail out plan.  Hmm.  Economic crisis?  McCain decline?  Might there be a correlation?