If he's sitting on all that campaign money, what else could he do with it... It was either some article I read on here or Politico, but the writer started wondering about if/when Rove would start reshuffling party money to campaigns that still mattered. Romney's debate performance was the proposed trigger.
My understanding is Romney doesn't have excess money, it's the RNC that has the mother lode. In fact, the Obama campaign pulled ahead in the money race in August. Going to the finish line, it's either a draw or slight advantage to Obama. The RNC and super-PACs will probably focus their huge war chests on congressional and Senate races to close things out unless they think Romney's outlook significantly improves. It's truly amazing how the outlook has changed the last 60 days.
I've said much the same already, several times, but it can't be said enough. Great post. We need to ensure not only an Obama victory, but that it's not as close as it was 12 years ago. Robus is more accurate, if the election comes down to a decision by the Supreme Court. Take nothing for granted!
I still have a feeling that the wingnuts will rally to get Romney the victory. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rhPzAbOFhFc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Side question: Do you think the Republicans overzealous pruning of moderates over the last 15 years that have lead to the dearth of any credible national frontrunners, or is it the brutally partisan primary gauntlets that weed them out? I'm beginning to think it's more and more the former than the latter.
President Obama Collects 10 Millionth Campaign Donation President Obama's re-election campaign, which is much more reliant on small donors than rival Mitt Romney's, celebrated its 10 millionth donation on Sunday night. @BarackObama Last night, this campaign reached 10,000,000 donations in 2012—a huge milestone and a historic record for grassroots politics.
The main effect of purging moderates has been to ruin congress. It's made the GOP more hard-edged, idiotlogical & nutty in addition to costing them seats. It clearly cost them the Senate in 2010. Their last 2 nominees for president (McCain and Romney) haven't exactly been raging wing-nuts. Question back to you: In your opinion, who was their last credible front-runner?
McCain was a good candidate. He just got the nomination at the wrong time in his life and in history. Too many factors conspired against him. 1) His age 2) The economy falling apart after his fundamentals are good comment 3) The historic nature of Obama 4) The Bush backlash 5) Sarah Palin ultimately being a disaster
I've said many times (IMO) McCain would have beaten Obama if he hadn't chosen the dingbat. It cost him my vote. Another piece of conventional wisdom I disagree with is Obama's race supposedly helping him in 2008. If he had been a dynamic white candidate, it would be been a double-digit landslide.
We're long past the days of double-digit landslides. We're simply too polarized as a country - it's why crazy candidates like Sharron Angle can be competitive. Even Christine O'Donnell, maybe the worst possible candidate in a solidly Democratic state, got 40% of the vote. In a Presidential election, barring a Herman Cain type candidate, each side is going to get 45% of the vote at a minimum. As for McCain, I agree with justtxyank that he was a good candidate at the wrong time. Had Gore won in 2000, I think he would have struggled with the empathy required for 9/11, and McCain would have probably won in 2004. But 2008 was the wrong time for him. Palin hurt him, but he wasn't going to win regardless - the whole reason he picked Palin was that he recognized that he needed a game-changing miracle to even have a small chance to win. It was a terrible pick from a leadership standpoint, but it was a Hail Mary that he recognized he needed.
I don't think McCain would've have won if he chose someone else besides Palin. He problem would've been more competitive but he still would've lost. You have to consider that if he chose Pawlenty who probably wouldn't have turned off many moderates and independents but also wouldn't have energized the base. At the same time that wouldn't have neutralized the other negatives about McCain that Justtyank listed. 2008 was a historical election in many ways and McCain just happened to be on the wrong side of history.
The fact McCain lost to Obama makes it easy to say he was "on the wrong side of history". It wasn't about energizing the base. His campaign felt the election was slipping away and the dingbat was a desperation pick that ended up ruining his credibility when the financial crisis became front and center. IMO, he would have closed hard in the last couple of weeks but having a ball and chain on his leg made that impossible. Several people I know weren't really comfortable with Obama but voted for him because they had no choice on the other side. Obama's strength as a candidate in 2008 is overstated by many. It's water under the bridge now but I'll just say he was fortunate to be running against an impaled opponent.
55/45 is about what it should have been in 2008 considering the dingbat. Agreed that McCain's peak time was past. In addition, his campaign them of "I deserve to be president because I've earned it, unlike the other guy" was a major turnoff. I don't want to derail the thread by going back to 2008. Suffice to say my opinion is different than most.
Palin was irrelevant by the end of the campaign. She didn't ruin his credibility on the financial crisis - he did by going nuts, suspending his campaign, making a bunch of dumb statements, and all around looking incompetent. None of that was Palin's doing. It was similar to Romney's response to Libya. And a whole chunk of people were uncomfortable voting for McCain but loved Palin. In the end, she probably cost him 1-2%, but that's about it. All the evidence shows there is very little impact from a VP candidate at the end of the day. She probably had more than most, but she energized the base in a way that McCain never was going to. She created the hate for Obama that McCain simply couldn't ever do. I think this is revisionist. His campaign was arguably as organized as powerful as any in history. Even given all the Democratic advantages, strategists thought he was crazy trying to go after North Carolina, Indiana, Montana, etc. He ran a virtually perfect campaign for the environment he was in and the mood of the electorate. And given his campaign's performance this time around, had he had a different type of opponent, there's nothing to suggest his campaign wouldn't have had a different but similarly effective strategy. He's running a totally different campaign in a totally different political environment now and getting basically the exact same results.
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