It all started, says presidential historian David Goldberg, with John McCain's change of campaign leadership.
McCain was suddenly controlled ... not his own man any longer.
Many people pointed to the negative campaigning from the Republicans and suggested a backlash. But in remarks on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com, Goldberg noted that both campaigns were equally guilty of negative campaigning.
But Goldberg says McCain's biggest problem was George W. Bush. He couldn't separate himself from the current, unpopular president.
His choice, imposed perhaps by the Republican National Committee, of Sarah Palin as his running mate, was designed to shore up the party's conservative base, which wasn't overly enthusiastic that he was the nominee. But that failed to help him with the non-partisan undecided voters.
Had he chosen a more moderate running mate, Goldberg says, the results may not have been much different. Because some conservatives may have sat out the election, voted for Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr, or may have even voted for Obama.
2 comments:
It might not have made a difference of course but I sure liked the McCain of 4 and 8 years ago better than the new McCain of this campaign.
I wish him well in his future endeavors.
I disagree with Mr Goldberg in a number of points:
It was more a Obama's victory than a Sen McCain's defeat; considering the huge negative contribution from Mr Bush Jr, he did a nice job: 46% of the popular vote was more than what either Bush Sr or Dole did against Clinton.
Personally, I wouldn't have selected Ms Palin; but as a campaign strategy, it may have partially worked: 53% white women voted McCain (vs 57% white men). It was just not enough.
Finally, I know there's always some "negative campaigning" from both sides: but the comparison on that issue of Dem vs Rep in this election would be just out of scale! While Sen McCain had to deal with Bush's Jr well deserved unpopularity, the bad economy and his own flipflopping, 95% or more of what Obamas was attacked with was objectively pure stupidity: his Birth, his name, his religion and so on.
The unavoidable conclusion for the undecided and some Reps must have been that all that shit was a poor excuse for racism.
BTW: Congratulations! Your crew and you did a great job.
ASC
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