WI: McCain wins in '08?

Suppose that Obama had some big scandal, a candidate less charismatic was nominated, or McCain just played his cards right and ran a better campaign? However it happens, McCain becomes president. How would a McCain first term have looked like, and would he have won again in 2012?
 
Given his economic positions, it would have looked pretty similar to a third term for George W. Bush. 2010 and 2012 would be landslides for the Democrats.

There probably would be boots on the ground from Syria to Afghanistan, perhaps there would still be a few in Libya.
 
He was pretty old; and the Presidency makes you age twice as fast. He'd either die in office during the first term or simply decline to run the second term.
 
Suppose that Obama had some big scandal, a candidate less charismatic was nominated, or McCain just played his cards right and ran a better campaign? However it happens, McCain becomes president. How would a McCain first term have looked like, and would he have won again in 2012?

McCain's #1, 2, and 3 problems were the credit crisis and mortgage meltdown. You want McCain to win take that away and maybe have change things so there is a small attack on one of our allies as what happened in 2005 in London and Palin or no Palin he will win by a fair bit. In fact had McCain not pissed off Bush by telling him to hide in a corner somewhere he might have used the SPR to pop the oil bubble before it did enough damage to the economy to get Wall Street to look at their books from the mortgage lenders to the people like Madoff and have things go into a panic and a crisis of confidence which Bush had to put down with massive amounts of money before it turned into a mass run on the banks.
 
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In the bad economic times of 2008, McCain would beat President Kerry. tThere would be no stimulus package.The would be worse. hHe loses in 2012. tThe victor could be Barack Obama. hHe is still the keynote speaker in 2004 and he is reelected in the Democratic landslide of 2010.
 
In the bad economic times of 2008, McCain would beat President Kerry. tThere would be no stimulus package.The would be worse. hHe loses in 2012. tThe victor could be Barack Obama. hHe is still the keynote speaker in 2004 and he is reelected in the Democratic landslide of 2010.

Would he run against Kerry? They were buds.
 
The short issue is McCain can't. He comes off in the narrative of history, at least to me, as part the sacrificial lamb, part the old dog being given his last chance.

The Republicans were shattered in 2008. They were shattered over every jagged rock that was the failure and unpopularity of the Bush administration. They were divided, they were unpopular. We should all be able to remember those days. In that period and the early years of the Obama administration, there was a growing consensus that the Republicans were out of it for the near future and that this was possibly a new political age. The latter had truth to it, but the former proved wrong as the Republicans went to the right and surged back with vengeance. That doesn't really matter for the topic, though, but it does show the thinking of that era which should reflect the way the Republicans had lost before they even started for 2008.
McCain won the nomination because he was, in the wake of the Bush administration's total unpopularity, the greatest Republican, and he was the elder Republican. And I contend that he, like Goldwater in 1964, was put out there as a sacrificial lamb; someone with support who was not necessarily ideologically popular with the thinking of the party at large, who was allowed the nomination because his time had come but that time was also the worst moment for it to come, who was going to lose as a result.
And he lost heavily. Had it not been for Palin firing up Conservatives, he likely would have lost even more.

You are not going to get McCain to the White House under anything like the situation as it was. The only way I've seen McCain win 2008 in a plausible way is in a timeline where John Edwards was nominated by the Democrats, has his scandals break, and McCain manages to get the win on that.
 
If he died from the stress of being President, than we have President Sarah Palin. God help all of us than. Or maybe we would have a new tv reality show called; The White House starring the Palin family.
 
some sort of stimulus would be passed but it would probaly not include green energy subsidies but throughout the McCain administration he would have to be forced to bargain with the democrats
 
McCain

McCain would gain some points in that he pointed to the mortgage crisis and the corruption, stupididty of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac years before the 07-08 crash. As a Republican I did not vote in 2008 knowing that Obama was what he has proven to be (European Socialist) and that McCain has shown for 20 plus years that his cure for all foriegn ills includes American servicemen going there. We would still be in Iraq to the gills, Astan...Libya, Syria, Darfour, Somalia anyone? If he did do foriegn policy as I think he would lose big in 12 and our economy may look nearly as bad as military spending would continue unabated...of course, in 08 the HoR would be different and the Senate would be atleast in the mid 50's for Dem Senators...In some ways could be the mid and late 90's in reverse.
 
McCain would gain some points in that he pointed to the mortgage crisis and the corruption, stupididty of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac years before the 07-08 crash. As a Republican I did not vote in 2008 knowing that Obama was what he has proven to be (European Socialist) and that McCain has shown for 20 plus years that his cure for all foriegn ills includes American servicemen going there. We would still be in Iraq to the gills, Astan...Libya, Syria, Darfour, Somalia anyone? If he did do foriegn policy as I think he would lose big in 12 and our economy may look nearly as bad as military spending would continue unabated...of course, in 08 the HoR would be different and the Senate would be atleast in the mid 50's for Dem Senators...In some ways could be the mid and late 90's in reverse.

Obama is as left wing as Dwight Eisenhower. Stop.
 
McCain would gain some points in that he pointed to the mortgage crisis and the corruption, stupididty of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac years before the 07-08 crash. As a Republican I did not vote in 2008 knowing that Obama was what he has proven to be (European Socialist) and that McCain has shown for 20 plus years that his cure for all foriegn ills includes American servicemen going there. We would still be in Iraq to the gills, Astan...Libya, Syria, Darfour, Somalia anyone? If he did do foriegn policy as I think he would lose big in 12 and our economy may look nearly as bad as military spending would continue unabated...of course, in 08 the HoR would be different and the Senate would be atleast in the mid 50's for Dem Senators...In some ways could be the mid and late 90's in reverse.

Pfft you have no idea what a real European Socialist is like if you base Obama as one.
 
You'd need to delay the banking crisis until after the election, give McCain a better running mate, and hit the Democrats with some scandal or mistake. Could Clinton have run a worse campaign than Obama had she won the nomination? Or could the John Edwards affair have leaked later, after Obama already chose him as a running mate? Even then, after the unpopularity of Bush, McCain's win would be close. I doubt he could flip the House and Senate, and if he did, they would be narrow majorities easily lost in 2010. 2012 would be a huge Democratic landslide, on par with 1932 in magnitude.
 
I contend that he, like Goldwater in 1964, was put out there as a sacrificial lamb; someone with support who was not necessarily ideologically popular with the thinking of the party at large, who was allowed the nomination because his time had come but that time was also the worst moment for it to come, who was going to lose as a result.

You make it sound like Goldwater was given a sword to fall on by the Establishment, when they tried their best to take the nomination from him even at the convention.
 
McCain would gain some points in that he pointed to the mortgage crisis and the corruption, stupididty of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac years before the 07-08 crash. As a Republican I did not vote in 2008 knowing that Obama was what he has proven to be (European Socialist) and that McCain has shown for 20 plus years that his cure for all foriegn ills includes American servicemen going there. We would still be in Iraq to the gills, Astan...Libya, Syria, Darfour, Somalia anyone? If he did do foriegn policy as I think he would lose big in 12 and our economy may look nearly as bad as military spending would continue unabated...of course, in 08 the HoR would be different and the Senate would be atleast in the mid 50's for Dem Senators...In some ways could be the mid and late 90's in reverse.


I think reality would have put serious limitation on his foreign policy goals.
 
Obama as a European Socialist

Obama like Eisenhower...not quite though Eisenhower wasn't a conservative in many ways.
Using European Socialist was being kind. I do not want to get into the mudslinging matches I have seen here. I realize most don't agree with me, but I am not going to call you ignorant or use apples and oranges type comparisons...Mid 50's after WW2 and New Deal are in many ways very different than the 80's.
My point was McCain...respect his Navy service immensely, is not a great senator nor would he make a great president...Democrat or Republican...Liberal, Moderate, or Conservative.
 
You make it sound like Goldwater was given a sword to fall on by the Establishment, when they tried their best to take the nomination from him even at the convention.

Better analogy would be Dole in '96 - runner up a little pass his time served up as the establishment choice in an unflattering election. Romney seems to fit the bill too, a candidate for the previous election.
 
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