fred1451
Banned
This is a guess based on my personal feelings, but, it might of had something to do with the fact as a Maverick he seemed to be fighting a personal vendetta against Bush, I heard because he thought he had been cheated out of the nomination in 2000, but what ever it was, he basically fought GWB over everything he tried to do from the Military to Tax Cuts.McCain is a war hero, a maverick and this often plays to strength, for example, he's in favor of a strong defense but against a gravy train for large contractors. . .
So, why was he unpopular with movement conservatives / proto- Tea Party crowd?
(and Dole picking Kemp in '96 didn't really have this business of balancing the ticket, nor really Bush picking Cheney)
McCain had, at least in my opinion 5 problems, 3 internal, 2 external, and pretty much any of them could have pretty much cost him the election, together? He had no chance.
The Internal
1) As you pointed out, he was a maverick, he often sided with democrats over republicans. Except of course the years in which he stood for election, in which case he swerved so hard to the right I'm surprised he wasn't in a neck brace. So he was viewed by the conservative base as a RINO, not a Maverick.
2) The theme of his Election Campaign could be summed up as "I can get things done with the Democrats." Which is not what the conservative base of the party wanted. (More ,"We want someone who will stomp the Dems into the mud and then piss on them.")
3) The nature of his election to the nomination, where in some states with open primaries, Democrats voted in Republican primaries and helped him win the state over more acceptable 'conservative' candidates. The view that he had been shoved down the conservatives throat didn't help with warm fuzzy feelings for him.
The Externals were:
1) George Bush's Third Term: On the surface it was ridiculous, John McCain had spent the last 8 years fighting just about everything that GWB had tried to do, yet he really didn't fight the charge so it stuck. In this one area I thought he was the best choice for a candidate, but by itself it wasn't going to win him the election.
2) Barrack Obama: You had a young, handsome, articulate, passionate candidate, promising everything to everybody, and a catchy slogan. Add in he would end up being the first black president, he had a catchy campaign slogan, and 110% support by the majority of the mainstream press and he would have been hard to beat by just about anyone Republican running that year, for the man who up to the time was probably one of the least popular with his own base there was no chance.
I'm surprised it was as close as it was. If Obama had any real experience in governing it probably would have been a landslide, he could have possibly run the table.
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