[NY Times Magazine] The Many Narratives of McCain 2008

The fact is America hates the Iraq War. Running on that alone would not have changed the outcome.

The celebrity thing was just stupid because there was too much counter information about McCain's thirst for celebrity and nobody really thinks Obama acts like a celebrity.

Hard to run against the party that screwed up Washington when you're the presidential nominee of that same party. The Country-first argument falls prey to the same dynamic.

The tax thing was a stupid reach to an old and outdated playbook. The current economic news and Obama's early fusillade of ads to counter this anticipated argument made this one DOA.

Obama was definitely vulnerable on experience and judgment, but McCain kept shooting himself in the foot with that one as well, first by making confusing statements about Sunni-Shia and other things, and then by picking Palin on a whim. He would have had to run an extremely smart and disciplined campaign to make this work in the current environment. Not likely, but possible. However, he didn't come close to running a smart and disciplined campaign, depending on people who read too many wingnut blogs and thought the path to victory led through either idiots or in recreating past races.

[edit: I should add that the best thing he could have done was to take control of his own party and run his own race... however, he ceded too much power and decision-making to people he thought could gain him credibility with the base or people who had worked for Bush that he thought knew how to win elections.]

 

I forget where I read this...

But he should have just gone with Obama's 'present' votes. Pushed hard that obama isn't willing to take chances/act/was an empty suite. They could have easily tied in the experience card/celebrity attacks as well.

They could easily have done this long before Obama started pushing the calm vs. erratic meme.

If McCain could have taken that stance, it changes the perspective on every incident in the election (biden, georgia, economy.)

But, instead McCain hopped around like (checking fatty's thread) maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

His campaign strategies hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

 

I think McCain could have made the "maverick" thing work better (even with Palin on the ticket) if he hadn't supported Bush's reelection in 2004. If he intended then to run for President in 2008, he should have stayed way, way in the background. He also should have been much more public (via interviews) about his disagreements (pre-surge Iraq strategy, torture) with the administration - maybe even to the point that when Americans saw him on TV, they would sigh and say 'there's McCain challenging the President again." However, assuming he didn't overexpose himself too much, he would have then set the stage to make a much more convincing "maverick"-focused campaign.

Of course, that might also have meant that he'd lose support from the die-hard Republicans and he might not have even gotten the nomination. And for many Americans, they don't care that the surge is working - it's simply the fact that the war has gone on too long for their tastes. And for a multitude of reasons, the default (thought not accurate or nuanced) impression people have is that Democrats are against the war and Republicans are for it. So McCain is tied to Iraq the same way Bush is no matter how different his position is.

 

the funny thing is before mccain did anything irrational, before picking a running mate, before the "i'm suspending" my campaign, before he held any spotlight, obama broke the temperment argument out at the convention. it was risky because it could have been conceived as a personal attack, but mccain has played right into it.

 

There are lots of things McCain could have done to make him more palatable to people who wouldn't have voted for him anyways.

I'm surprised he did as well as he did so far. Obama's a great candidate in his own right, has a three to one funding advantage, and McCain's dragging the legacy of 8 years of team Bush and a suffering economy to a tired 'base' and energized opposition.

The tax and spend liberal tack may have had more traction -- especially with healthcare on the agenda -- but I think even a Bloomberg/Powell ticket running under the GOP banner would have been tromped by Sen Obama. Maybe not such an epic landslide -- but I think this election was always about Obama and not Sen McCain.

I doubt there was anything McCain could have done to make pgabs, aghast or rimrocker actually cast a vote for him this year.

 

No way I would have voted for any Republican this year... but that doesn't mean McCain automatically loses. He did have a slim chance.

 

Everything went wrong with Bush and McCain supported him so naturally he is at a disadvantage. Now if the war was fine and dandy and economy was booming then freaking McCain would be a hero. He took these positions 4 years ago when everyone thought this war would be over soon. That's called politics, sometimes its pays off but at times it can also bite you in the rear end. Republicans cannot hide from the record of supporting this war but Democrats can easily flip-flop blaming faulty intelligence, Donald Rumsfeld, Collin Powell etc...a problem which doomed the last Democratic Presidential Nominee. Now 4 years later Obama comes in the picture as fresh guy with a clean slate no rap sheet on voting either way on the stuff that affects Americans today. Hypothetically if he were in the Senate back in 2003 and voted for this war like all of his party as it was the right thing to do at the time. what would be the outcome of Obama's campaign today? You can't design a campaign to go after this guy's political career cause he has none. No record for any major issue. In politics that man is called a "virgin" and a majority of Americans wish to make him the President.

 

You have taken my meaning of "virgin" completely wrong. In politics its referred to someone who never put his neck on the line on any issue because sooner or later everyone gets crushed for voting one way or the other. It has nothing to with voting for the war in Iraq. You alluded to the fact by quoting Axelrod and finally confirming my position on Obama's inexperience and willingness to play career politician first instead of focusing on bringing changes regardless of what office he holds. MLK the man who Obama so often quotes, brought change without demanding he be placed on a higher position in order to do so. Barrack Obama makes these promises and tells his story but demands that you empower him as President before he can do anything at all.

Honestly, before Obama took the nomination, I was leaning towards the Dems and a moderate Democrat President would have done it for me but Barrack Obama in my view is a fraudulent politician running on a platform where his rhetoric overshadows his politics. The reason McCain and the Republican are still in this election is because Obama is a liberal extremist and that has a lot of people deeply troubled.

 

It seems like part of what you don't like about Obama is the change and working with others. It's been his mantra all along that there is more that unites us than divides us, and that he should and we should focus more on the common ground we have than on the divisive issues. So much of the legislation he's been behind was indeed welcomed by large majorities of people. That's his style of governance and has proved effective.

That being said, he did stick his neck out a number of issues, including talking to car manufacturers in Michigan about increasing fuel efficiency standards. That isn't a popular position amongst that constituency, yet Obama said it directly to them when addressing them.

Obama has already brought changes and he isn't in a position of power. His whole idea of uniting the country and lashing out against negative divisive campaigning has been effective, and seems to be working. It worked in the primaries, and political crowds at debates actually booed Hillary when she went on the attack, and gave her a standing O when she spoke nicely about her opponent. That was an amazing thing to see at a political debate in this day and age.

McCain/Palin's negative campaigning hasn't been effective the way negative ads have been in the past, and we can hope that kind of change continues. Just look at the tone of Bachman and the reaction it's received. Obama's speech against a red state and blue state America in favor of a United States of America is coming to fruition. So the change has already started, and he isn't the President yet.

 

You bring up CEO as an example but Obama hasn't done anything at the company to deserve this promotion. He tells everyone about this change he is going to bring if elected Senator of Illinois and then after winning the seat goes under the radar for two years and raises no issues that might tarnish his image and voting record since he plans on securing the White House. This is the kind of stuff that got a buffoon like Bush elected in the first place. Now we are heading done the same path again with a guy playing career politician first over serious reformer. You heard the man's chief of staff in his own words tell you that they planned this whole thing from the start and wanted to avoid all conflicts so Obama slowly worked the system, greased his fellow politicians and rose to this level because he has brownie points with everyone in Washington. That in itself is fraudulent to the people who voted him as Senator and what we call in the lame term a sell out.

 

Is there anyone besides a commited Obama supporter who reads NYT. I am not mocking but they are so far in the tank for Obama that they lost all credibility. They make Abc look like Fox News. CNN is the smartest news because they try to hold an occasional unbias story even they are clearly leftist. I can see how an Independent might be swayed by them.

Anyway you won't hear this from NYT or MSM but there is a report that Obama ia citizen in America but his father may not be Barack Obama Sr. I won't post any links but if you go to the Gawker site there is a story on it. If you remember Gawker are the ones who posted all of Palins personal emails. They have posted info about nude pics and say it is all bogus. The only thing is Gawker desn't usually post stuff about bogus Obama stuff that is most likely false.

 

It's not really but I also felt it wasn't worthy of it's on thread. Still there are some serious implications about Obama's citizenship that are being challenged in the federal courts and there is no mention of it anywhere. I don't know if it is true or not but I just thought somebody might make an attempt to report it. It is in the Daily KOS as well. They are disputing it. But what I find interesting is that it has only been reported in some right wing blogs and normally they don't get responded to.