In his excellent concession speech, John McCain said that he would leave it to others to catalog the mistakes he made in his campaign. So here's a start. By the way, where was the John McCain that gave that concession speech for the last two years? Too late he finally delivers a decent speech!
McCain made so many mistakes, his campaign will be used in political science textbooks for years to come. Here are a few I can think of. Some may seem trivial, but when you add them up...
1. The Count Dracula Black Suits: These made McCain look old and creepy. For a man who needed to look younger than he was, he dressed poorly. I think someone told him black made him look thinner. Bad advice.
2. The Smile: Not since "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" have Americans been subjected to such BAD TEETH and such a FORCED SMILE. Again, some bad advice from someone here. Someone told him to "show teeth". That is good advice for a Hollywood star or someone like Obama who has a natural "big mouth" smile. But for some folks, it just looks creepy and forced. Bad idea. Better off to do the closed mouth smile and look natural than to "show teeth" when it doesn't work for you.
3. "My Friends..." OK, that was funny the first few times around. But after a while it started to sound like a tag line from a bad sitcom - sort of like J.J. Walker's "Dyn-O-MITE!" Presidents don't have tag lines.
4. Immigration Reform: The Bush/McCain immigration reform bill was the only good thing to come out of the Bush Presidency, and the far right shot it down (aided by some opportunistic Democrats). Going against HIS OWN IMMIGRATION BILL was the ultimate flip-flop and it did not play well with the Hispanic voters, who ended up being a deciding factor in many States.
5. Pandering to fear: McCain offered more than enough spurious reasons to fear Barack Obama, but offered no compelling reason to vote for him. He pandered to the "we hate blacks" part of the country (Notice how nearly all the SLAVE STATES went McCain) but turned off the rest.
6. Sarah Palin. Wow. What a colossal screwup.
7. Poor campaign management: He started out with one team in the primaries, blew through nearly all his money and nearly lost, then switched teams, pandered to the far right to win the primary, then switched to another team, and forgot to go back to the center for the general election. He was poorly served by all the management in his campaign, who openly bickered with each other and with Sarah Palin's advisors. Amateur night!
8. Insulting our intelligence: McCain did very poorly with educated voters. When you come out with these claims that Obama is a Marxist or some stupid attack ad that a child can see through, you insult the intelligence of any thinking American. Meanwhile, on the TeeVee, we see images of bellicose and belligerant McCain supporters at his rallies saying some very, very ignorant and nasty things. Smart peope don't go for that. The reassuring news is that Smart people seem to outnumber dumb people, despite "no child left behind". You can't fool all the people all the time!
9. Not Dividing himself from Bush: McCain WAS a Maverick back in 2000 and even 2004. He had serious diagreements with George Bush over many policies, and his record should have been enough to distance himself from the unpopular President. However, in the last few years, as part of his pander spectacle, he aligned himself more closely with Bush, and that backfired.
10. The Cheney Vase: Getting Dick Cheney's endorsement was the kiss of death. What was McCain thinking? He should have told Cheney to go back to his "undisclosed location" and stay there until Novemebr 5th. The only worse endorsement you could get would be Osama Bin Laden himself.
11. "The Economy is Fundamantally Strong" This may be technically correct, but was bad political theater. (The economy will recover with suprising speed, and even now shows signs of recovery, just wait for it). Regardless, however, telling someone who lost their job or house that things overall are good is not the right thing to say. It's all in how you say it.
12. George Bush's Scare the Crap out of Everybody Speech: GW did not favors to McCain when he went on national TeeVee and said the entire country is headed for the dumpster unless we bail out Wall Street NOW with $700 Billion. If the economy seemed "fundamentally strong" the week before, it certainly didn't the next. Bush could have played this better so that it did not hurt McCain as much. Of course, GW and McCain have some history, so perhaps it was intentional?
13. Suspending the Campaign and Rushing to Washington to Save America: This came across as histronics of the worst sort - and a form of narcissism (the word of the hour!). McCain would single-handedly save American from the economic crises! Perhaps that was the plan with Bush all along? Bush would set up a slow pitch for McCain (the crises speech) and McCain would bat it out of the ballpark by "fixing the economy" by passing the bailout bill. If so, someone forgot to tell the rest of the Republicans, who shot down the effort. McCain's "suspension" ended up seeming overdramatic and ineffectual - two things we don't want in a President.
There are, of course, maybe dozens more mistakes he made. Not renouncing the racist and violent comments of his "supporters" for starters (and pandering to that "base base" in the first place). The list goes on and on. It is a TEXTBOOK case of how to lose an election.
His speaking style was also a key. He stumbled and hesitated and sounded like someone WHO DID NOT BELIEVE, IN HIS HEART, WHAT HE WAS SAYING.
The only decent pseech he gave was his concession speech. That was polished and poised and smooth. You felt he WAS speaking from the heart then.
All he needed to do was get the middle class, middle-of-the-road voters. And he failed. Even my Republican friends in Northern Virginia who voted for Bush last time voted for Obama. That says a lot.
He blew it!
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