Revisited: Could McCain beat Clinton?

2008 was very much a Democratic year, but I think something could be said regarding Clinton's effectiveness as a candidate given how she fared in 2016 (and how she lost in 2008 and didn't even perform all that well in 2000).

Had Clinton been the 2008 nominee the game would have changed in a number of ways:

1) Less youth turnout
2) Less African-American Turnout
3) The Antiwar vote is not galvanized the way they were for Obama
4) The Republicans can try to blame the housing/financial crisis on Clinton administration housing policies
5) The right really hates Hillary Clinton. No matter who McCain picks for a running mate, he can count on strong GOP base turnout and unity within the ranks (Obama got 20% of the Conservative vote in 2008)
6) McCain can probably pick Lieberman as his running mate here and get away with it because the base will still come out to oppose Clinton. It definitely doesn't look good when your husband's VP's 2000 running mate is running against you and McCain can more aggressively court independents here.

Could Clinton have dropped the ball in 2008 and gave it to McCain?
 
Let's look at these points each:

1) Less youth turnout

I agree, Hillary would of been a significantly worse fit for Millenials than Obama would of been and wouldn't got near the numbers he was able to get (Obama got about 68% in the end, a ridiculously high number).

2) Less African-American Turnout

Yes another thing that would of hurt Hillary, who while being well liked by the black community, was never going to get the turnout that Obama would get. This also links in the first pont as much of the increase in black turnout was amongst younger blacks.

3) The Antiwar vote is not galvanised the way they were for Obama

Also true, although this strongly linked in with the first point.

4) The Republicans can try to blame the housing/financial crisis on Clinton administration housing policies

The can certainly try and do that. It probably won't work because 1) McCain is somewhat clueless on economic policy 2) Nobody is going to know what the hell Republicans are talking about when they start ranting about the Community Reinvestment act (or frankly any other technical financial law) All they can see is the economy collapsing under a republican president.

5) The right really hates Hillary Clinton. No matter who McCain picks for a running mate, he can count on strong GOP base turnout and unity within the ranks (Obama got 20% of the Conservative vote in 2008)

The right also hates Barrack Obama (and frankly any modern day Democratic nominee). This doesn't change the fact that the GOP base doesn't like McCain and with the unpopularity of the Bush admin many of them are seriously considering not turning out that year.

6) McCain can probably pick Lieberman as his running mate here and get away with it because the base will still come out to oppose Clinton.

Sure most Republicans would end up voting for McCain/Lieberman at the end of the day. However the Republican base is still going to be infuriated that McCain picked Lieberman and will suffer from dangerously low turnout if he is crazy enough to go through with his Lieberman fantasy.

It definitely doesn't look good when your husband's VP's 2000 running mate is running against you and McCain can more aggressively court independents here.

Nobody is going to care about that first point. Liberals already depise Lieberman. Republicans are going to be mad that McCain has decided to pick a pro-choice and pro-gun control VP. They are already disillusioned by the Bush years and already are suspicious of McCain. And any goodwill from the media and swing voters liking McCain's bipartisanship, is quickly going to be overshadowed by the ugly disaster the GOP convention is going to be, when McCain tries to force Lieberman upon the party.

Overall, it's extremely unlikely for McCain to pull of a win in 2008 with the expected circumstances in that year. Although it's definitely possible that Hillary does worse than Obama ended up doing.
 
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Could Clinton have dropped the ball in 2008 and gave it to McCain?

No.

2008 was not 2016. In 2008 HRC was much stronger with white working-class voters than she would be in 2016. The evidence is all over the 2016 primaries, many of which were 2008 in reverse with HRC doing best in counties where Obama won the primary in 2008 and Sanders doing best in counties HRC had won the primary vote in 2008. E.g.,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_Democratic_primary,_2008
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_Democratic_primary,_2016

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Democratic_primary,_2008
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Democratic_primary,_2016


One other point: While it is not inevitable that a party lose the White House after two terms (as 1988 shows), still, in every post-World War II election (including 1988) the party seeking to hold the White House after eight years did worse (in terms of percentage of the two party vote) than it had done four years earlier. This suggests that even in a "normal" 2008 (i.e., one not featuring the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression!) the Republicans would have had a hard time holding on to the White House, given the narrowness of Bush's re-election in 2004.
 
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2008 was enough of a Dem wave HRC could pick Edwards for veep and then do what McGovern did to Eagleton to him when the affairs come out and she’d still most likely win.
 
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