Comments on: He’s Mavericky Once Again

By: CStanley

CStanley — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:08:56 +0000

Did they go for W because he was bipartisan? When you analyze a group of swing voters, you have to have some idea of why they vote one way or another, and I'd say most certainly that those groups weren't searching for a maverick Republican. They are conservative on some issues and the soccer moms probably went for W because of national security, for instance- so in what way would McCain have won them over by being less aligned with the GOP?

Besides, you can't discount the 'Oprah effect' with that group. I'm not saying that they went for Obama because of her endorsement specifically, but they likes the things that Oprah likes.

By: Rudi

Rudi — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:49:47 +0000

Why wouldn't the Reagan Democrats and soccer moms have voted for the bipartisan McCain versus the Palin/McCain?

By: CStanley

CStanley — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:46:57 +0000

Um, that's kind of my point, Rudi. Those soccer moms and Reagan Democrats weren't going to vote GOP even if McCain had thumbed his nose at the conservative establishment- but the 'white male southerners' wouldn't have held their nose to vote for McCain if he'd have done so. The loss would have been monumental in proportion.

By: Rudi

Rudi — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:52:34 +0000

Cs McCain didn't lose the white male southern vote(NASCAR), he lost the soccer moms and Reagan Democrats. Colin Powell says his party must become more “mavericky”.

By: CStanley

CStanley — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:17:12 +0000

Though one has to wonder: what would have happened if McCain was allowed to be McCain during the election? What would have happened?

A landslide that would have made the Dukakis loss look somewhat close.

If McCain had been more 'mavericky' during the campaign, do you really think it would have changed the moderate Republicans' minds about going gaga for Obama? All it would have done would have been to reduce the tepid amount of support he got from the conservative base.

There were a lot of missteps in his campaign for sure, but no Republican really stood a chance.

By: superdestroyer

superdestroyer — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:00:23 +0000

On the other hand, this shows why conservatives were correct to stay home instead of support McCain when he would have almost immediately have stabbed them in the back. If people wonder why some conservatives have litmus tests, McCain is the perfect example. He will stab conservatives in the back given the chance but will jump anytime the Democrats told him to jump.

McCain was totally unfit to be president and this is just a continuation of situations demonstrating that.

By: MJDaniels53

MJDaniels53 — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 06:22:26 +0000

The thing that future historians will ponder, I think, is why McCain squandered the one attribute that gave him a slim chance of election–his reputation for fair-mindedness and willingness to work with Democrats in spite of his clearly conservative voting record–to run a cookie-cutter partisan campaign, the kind designed to appeal to and energize his party's base in a year when even the base was pared down in the face of economic woes. There was no way that the conservative base of the party was going to be sufficient this past year to win. Ignoring that was a major misstep, one that a politician of McCain's experience should have clearly seen to avoid.

Good post.