McCain Pawlenty 08

I just saw a TL someone wrote on another site that had McCain picking Tim Pawlenty and winning the election. I could not figure out how to comment on the site, so I am feeling a great deal of frustration right now. Here is the comments I meant to put there. First I don't see how the candidate of the president's party wins in a time of economic collapse. My much more controversial comment for the secular. libertarian and liberal audience I am addressing is that McCain would have done worse without Palin. She helped build bridges to skepitcal social conservatives. McCain might lose the close states of Georgia and Montana.
 
Don't even want to comment, but from your past record, you seem to believe that in order to have a Republican win, the GOP must nominate a hard right conservative or then the conservative base would be alienated or that a third party run would automatically occur. I'm sorry, but most conservatives would still vote Republican, in order not to have a Democrat win, which they consider worse. While it's true that Palin did help McCain get conservative votes, she screwed him more by helping him lose moderate votes. I just wonder whether or not in your dictionary, there is no such term called swing voters or moderates.
 
The election would probably be closer than it was OTL, that's for sure. Palin scared off a lot of moderates who would vote for McCain simply because she made George W. Bush look like an intellectual and would have been one (72-year old man who had already had cancer) heartbeat away from the presidency.

That being said, it still would be an Obama/Biden EC blowout. T-Paw also would not have helped McCain carry Minnesota, since he was getting pretty unpopular here because of his education cuts (which no previous governor in Minnesota history had ever done).
 
So Al Franken still wins

I don't see why he wouldn't. If Franken were able to tie Coleman to Bush and McCain/Pawlenty, his margin of victory would probably increase. The only way in this scenario that Coleman could win is if Pawlenty could somehow convince enough Barkley voters to pull the lever for Coleman (which is doubtful, since the only Barkley voters I know would have likely voted Democratic if it were just between Franken & Coleman).
 
Don't even want to comment, but from your past record, you seem to believe that in order to have a Republican win, the GOP must nominate a hard right conservative or then the conservative base would be alienated or that a third party run would automatically occur. I'm sorry, but most conservatives would still vote Republican, in order not to have a Democrat win, which they consider worse. While it's true that Palin did help McCain get conservative votes, she screwed him more by helping him lose moderate votes. I just wonder whether or not in your dictionary, there is no such term called swing voters or moderates.
McCain was never going to win, but Palin ensured that Republicans turned out. Pawlenty not as much.

The real wet dream for the Democrats would be Lieberman though, because he would certainly decrease Republican turnout by a bunch.
 
McCain was never going to win, but Palin ensured that Republicans turned out. Pawlenty not as much.

The real wet dream for the Democrats would be Lieberman though, because he would certainly decrease Republican turnout by a bunch.
Lieberman might have made enough Republicans sit home to make a difference, but I imagine there would be very few who would sit out because of Pawlenty.
 
I do think Paul V. McNutt's initial frustration is well-taken, though: for McCain to win in 2008, he'd have to flip the Omaha congressional district, the six closest Obama states (IN, FL, OH, VA, NC, and CO) -- and I use "close" there pretty loosely; Obama won Colorado by 9 points -- and still pick off either Iowa or New Hampshire, each of which Obama won by nearly ten percentage points.

There isn't a running mate in history worth ten points in the swing states.

(FWIW, I agree with Plumber's argument that Palin was probably on balance, a slightly positive pick for McCain in terms of energizing base support, since McCain lost independents anyway. Essentially the argument is that if you were voting Republican in 2008, you were probably doing so for strong enough other reasons that Palin would not be a sufficient deterrent; the "hold your nose and vote Republican anyway" theory.
 
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