RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Why McCain Lost

I wrote this in another thread, but I think it bears repeating. Don't believe all the hype. At the end of the day, it was Conservative talk radio that cost McCain this election. After McCain got the nomination, the talkies went to town on him and how he wasn't "conservative" enough. By doing so, they turned many within the base against him. This, in turn, led to McCain having to fight too hard on the defensive to win the base early in the election season while Obama was able to go for states that seemed within distance. The last week of the election showed this. McCain was gaining in the polls as soon as he was able to turn away from having to get the house in order. But, by then, it was too little and too late.

Don't believe what they tell you tomorrow. It was guys like Rush and Hannity that blew this election for McCain. Sorry, Republicans. You have nothing but your mouthpieces to blame on this one.

Shut the fuck up you goddamn retard.

Fuck you, Rex. If you had half a brain then you might remember back when he was getting slammed by nearly every conservative commentator about not really representing the Republican party.

Now, go fuck a sock or something.

No one gives a shit about your opinion. You are the afterbirth of a failed raid. Go back and enjoy the insurgency circle jerk.

McCain lost because of the media witch hunt lies and bull shit. I in part blame the influence of Oprah....of course I always blame her for the downfall of society BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE DOES!!!!

C'mon, Franta. Don't be another mindless drone. Anyone who listened to conservative talk radio four or five months ago heard all the anti-McCain stuff that was said. They made him work too hard to win the core of the party. After that, he was left playing catch up to Mister Yes-We-Can. Hell, some of them didn't even really get behind McCain until after he picked Palin as his VP. Having to win over the core means not being out there to win over the undecideds and swing voters.

I win again!

Internet win: It is like winning in the real world only a lot less useful.

Im not quite following you.....but dont you see MY point?!?!?!?!

Only .2% of the population understand what a psychotic bitch Oprah is so I doubt he does.

I'm not denying the role of the mainstream's (see, liberal media) role in this. What I am saying hurt more is the role of conservative commentators who would've rather bash McCain than do all they could to help him after he got the party's nod. They didn't even hop on the bandwagon until Palin. But, the damage to the base had already been done. He had to turn to shoring up the base rather than going after undecideds because they would have rather attack him than get behind the party's decision.

Top Thirty Errors That Doomed McCain

And a much shorter, but similar, list from National Review

• 1) We got this the old-fashioned way: we earned it. The other side took the fight to us, and we never took the fight to the other side, except coyly and obliquely. That's not a mistake we should make the next time. "Honorable campaigns" are for losers. Next time, call 'em as they really are, not as you wish to see 'em.
  
  2) Where was Bush? Once again, and right to the bitter end, he let his passion for "loyalty" supersede what was stragetically right for the party, not to mention what was best for the country. I think his reputation has nowhere to go but down; yes, he got one big thing right,
  but he got everything else wrong. Enough of this family in our
  country's politics!
  
  3) Good riddance to Liddy Dole, the woman who gave us the national drinking age of 21 and a host of sozzled underage college students. She won't be missed.
  
  4) Hillary comes out smelling like a rose, plus unbloodied. She and Bill are already scoping out 2012.
  
  5) Time to clean house. McCain should have been president in 2000, not in 2008. No more "it's my turn" for the last loser. We need to be looking for our candidates in the ranks of returning war vets — think Eisenhower in '52 as the model — and let the Dem's shifty lawyers run the country for a couple of years. Then hit them across the board with people who know how to lead. Gen. Petraeus might be a good place to start. Lots of junior officers, too.
  
  6) You know what? McCain never did sell himself as a leader. He sold himself as a maverick.
  
  7) One upside: McCain/Feingold is now dead, as is public financing. Talk about being hoist with your own petard!
  
  8) That Gang of 14 thing really worked out well, didn't it? Say good-bye to the courts. And we were so close...
  
  9) Joe Lieberman was worse than useless. When he could have made a difference, he didn't cross the aisle to caucus with the Republicans.
  Now, it doesn't matter. Thanks, Joe.
  
  10) Age matters. McCain ran an "honorable campaign" because he never really understood in his heart that the other guy had no intention of doing so; he didn't "get" Obama's generation, or Axelrod's.. Obama would lie about public financing, "oppose" gay marriage but also oppose Prop. 8 and never see it as morally contradictory. The world that McCain understood and operated in is vanishing, and tonight is visible evidence.
  
  11) Unlike the Democrats, let's show some class in defeat. That doesn't mean lie down and roll over: it means fighting for what we believe in, doubly so now. But their sneering childishness is not for us; and now that they've won, they won't be able to control it even in victory. This is an unlovely party filled with unlovely people, as America's about to find out once the Obama pixie dust wears off.
  
  12) Understand, once and for all, that the old media is part of the Democratic Party now. Ignore it. Never send Michele Bachmann onto Hardball again. Never send Sarah to play nice with Katie. We need to develop and create our own work-arounds — Fox, talk radio, NRO, etc. — and use them. Don't play by their rules: make our own.

I think the NR list is little ignorant of just how eager the Democrat majority is to silence the opposition, however.

I think 11 has already gone tits up on these boards at least! MCCain's speach was good though.

This is the RKMBs. We might have noticed we tend to be a bit irreverent.

More analysis from National Review;

• Could any candidate have been elected to succeed a president of his own party whose job approval rating was 25 percent? Probably not. Could any candidate have been elected to continue his party’s stay in the White House when roughly 90 percent of Americans believed the country was on the wrong track? Probably not. Could any candidate from the governing party have been elected after the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 4,000 points before one could even turn around? Probably not.
  
  McCain faced all those obstacles — and not just those, but a political climate in which his advantage over his opponent was perversely diminished by McCain’s own courage and good judgment. In the primaries, McCain bet his entire candidacy on the surge in Iraq. He was right, and Democrats were wrong. By any measure, he should have benefited, and Democrats should have suffered, when the surge worked. Instead, as Americans achieved greater success in Iraq — and as U.S. deaths fell to 13 last month, equaling the lowest total in a very long time — the war in Iraq simply fell off many voters’ radar screens. McCain’s resoluteness and good sense went largely unrewarded.

Wow. The National Review is really fucking bitter.

I think McCain lost because of the 'perfect storm' against him and Republicans. Iggy and Franta are both right. McCain had to spend too much time pandering to the base because of the Coulters and Limbaugh's smack talking him in the primaries. McCain going more and more to the right fucked his credibility. And the media was in Obama's pocket the whole time. Plus, Bush, being the defacto Republican leader as president, was feeling an all-time low approval rating by the people. Add to that the timing of the economic meltdown, and McCain didn't have a chance. I don't think any other Republican would have faired any better.

His campaign wasn't a McCain campaign. It was an RNC campaign and run as such. Too many negative ads and not enough of McCain introducing his vision for America. I think that's what he lacked, a pronounced vision. Obama had a vision. His vision is BS, terribly expensive, and highly undoable, but it's a vision.

Obama ran the largest, most expensive, and most organized campaign in history. He created new voters in a way that the Republicans would never have thought of. The times are changing, and the Republican Party hasn't figured out how to update their image and cultivate a new generation of voters.

Yeah, he's easy to piss off. He should learn to relax.

Well, it depends on which writer there you read but, understandably, the magazine that more or less founded the conservative movement is going to be a little bitter on a day like today.

I mostly agree with Doc, but McCain could have campaigned a whole lot harder. I imagine that if Palin were in charge of what would have been said, they could have won--Or at least gotten a lot closer to Obama's electoral college vote.

McCain's campaign should have torn apart Obama's tax and healthcare plans instead of talking about William Ayers every other sentence. Obama has no ideas, only promises, and that's what McCain needed to point out to everyone.

Also McCain shouldnt have lied to that old woman at the rally.

obama was certainly wise to avoid the 10 town hall meetings.

mccain should have tried to draw out specifics in the 3 debates they did have. i think his reluctance to talk to (or really even look at) obama to confront him was overtly detrimental.

I have read that one could not look directly into the Antichrist's eyes.

like that movie end of days with shwarzenegger