Better McCain Running Mate

In one of McCain's '08 debates with Obama, he was talking about defense contractors. He was talking about unethical behavior, and he said if they tried that under him, you will know their names. He came off as both strong and competent.

Maybe if he had taken the tact with the banking crisis: We will bail out the same banks who got us in this mess in the first place, because we must, because the economy demands it. And then we will use Sherman Anti-Trust in a lawful, orderly way to break up the big boy banks. This whole business of 'too big to fail' is a bad situation to be in.

If McCain had taken a position that strong and that straightforward, I really wonder, even if Palin had been his VP.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
In one of McCain's '08 debates with Obama, he was talking about defense contractors. He was talking about unethical behavior, and he said if they tried that under him, you will know their names. He came off as both strong and competent.

Maybe if he had taken the tact with the banking crisis: We will bail out the same banks who got us in this mess in the first place, because we must, because the economy demands it. And then we will use Sherman Anti-Trust in a lawful, orderly way to break up the big boy banks. This whole business of 'too big to fail' is a bad situation to be in.

If McCain had taken a position that strong and that straightforward, I really wonder, even if Palin had been his VP.

Rightly or wrongly, fairly or unfairly, the Independents blamed Bush and the GOP for the financial crisis that probably had its roots in my view since 1976. McCain was not going to be able to overcome that.

Had he hit Obama harder on some questionable things like Reverend Wright, the Alinsky and Ayers connections, Chicago Style politics, etc., he might have had some room for a negative campaign that scared moderates into voting for him.

He tried to run a maverick positive campaign, and it utterly failed. If you look at McCain's history as a politician, when it comes to Senate elections and primaries, the dude runs brutal and hardcore dirty campaigns, but whenever he tried to go higher, he avoided that for some reason, and it cost him big time. McCain is a better as a fighter, honestly.

McCain could win on foreign policy due to the success of the Iraq Surge and the rebound in confidence among Independents in the War on Terror, as well as his Iran stance, which yet again was more popular with Independents even than Republicans. On social issues, he didn't go off the map and he wasn't losing on that either. But the economy was too much to overcome. If the election happens in 2006, he loses because of the deterioration in Iraq. If its in 2004, he wins. If its in 2010, he rides the Tea Party Wave. 2008 was the worst year possible for him, and that is when he ran.
 
By 2012, Palin had been ridiculed and mocked for 4 years. Nobody is going to win with her on the ticket, they'd be laughed out of the building.

True but they had a better chance in those years than in 08 where all a candidate had to be to win was breathe and not be republican. but you are probably right about 2012, 04 maybe.
 
2008 was essentially unwinnable for the Republicans, unless the Democratic candidate utterly imploded (John Edwards might have made it a competitive race). The only way to avoid that is to avoid the Bush presidency (remember that the Republicans lost Congress in 2006; Bush was massively unpopular even before the economy self-destructed).

And no, no one cared about Ayres, Alinsky, etc. other than people that were never going to vote for Obama anyway.

On the other hand, if McCain nominates someone else, that person is likely to have a good shot at the nomination in 2012; there was clearly a substantial "anyone but Romney"-vote, but no one perceived as competent for it to go to.
 
if John had kept it very simple and straightforward: We're going to do the bailout we need to do, and then we're going to use Sherman Anti-Trust . . .

and if you happen to be mistaken about what Sherman Anti-Trust can do, that's fine, you're just very matter-of-fact about it, a la Reagan, and you do it another way.

I think politicians of all stripes underestimate just how much voters want simplicity. And an interesting conversation might be why.
 
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