McCain Pollster Explains Loss, Calls Frank Luntz A Moron

The chief pollster for John McCain's presidential campaign offered a candid diagnosis of how his candidate was done in, on occasion reserving harsh words for fellow Republicans.

Bill McInturff, speaking at a National Journal breakfast on Thursday, said the political environment for the GOP in 2008 was worse than anything he has seen in his time polling since former Soviet empires were breaking the shackles of communism.

"Reporters would call me up and say, 'have you ever seen this?'" McInturff said of George W. Bush's approval ratings. "And I say, 'yeah, Bulgaria 1992.'"

"We had a very unpopular war and the most unpopular president in American polling history," he explained, by way of summarizing the election. "We had a 70 percent wrong track and we were winning. We were winning. And what happened? We said that's not hard enough for John McCain. We should implode the financial markets. And what happens? We go from 70 percent wrong track to literally 90 percent."

Unrestrained by the formalities of the election, McInturff levied some sharps words at fellow GOPers who -- generally speaking -- never really were bullish on the idea of a McCain presidency. The most biting jabs were saved for communications guru Frank Luntz.

"I saw Frank Luntz," said McInturff, "who is a moron -- I want to make sure this is clearly on the record -- he was talking to Republican governors, making fun of John for not being able to use a BlackBerry. The man can't do it because he is much more disabled than people can imagine... I would like to take a hammer and start breaking bones in Frank's arms."

McInturff later noted that the Obama campaign ran an ad on this very topic, and vice presidential candidate Joe Biden criticized the spot because of its insensitivity.

In addition to going after Luntz, McInturff highlighted several factors that he credited with truly hurting the McCain candidacy. The first, and most obvious, was the crisis in the financial markets and the failure of the House of Representatives to quickly pass a bailout packaged.

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"We had the House not voting for the bailout," he said, "which kept that story going for another seven days and helped implode the campaign."

The second was McCain's age, which was a huge handicap in a change election.

"When you have a 70-year-old nominee versus a new generation candidate," he said, "it is very hard."

The final, and most surprising, was the Hispanic vote, which trended heavily towards Obama. McInturff said that the most effective commercial of the campaign was the Spanish-language spot, put up by the now president-elect, which claimed that conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh was a McCain ally on immigration. Mainly, however, Obama had a huge financial advantage that allowed him to make great inroads within this and other minority communities.

"If the other team has 700 million and they are spending five times as much on Spanish language media saying that crap," he said, "it has an effect."

Comments

[CitizenE]

Like most of the right--Republicans, white man's way militias, intellectual social Darwinists, even so called moderates like McCain--mired in the 19th century ideologically, and strategically drifting from crisis to crisis throwing up some new reactionary tactic that falls short repeatedly, contradicting themselves and/or their philosophy, this fellow here appears unequal to the temper of the times in his appraisal of the facts on the ground.
Obama, on the other hand, caught the incoming tide. The challenge he and the Dem Congress and Senate will face is in getting off the dime and getting things done. If they do that and the R's continue to snipe, maunder, and politic with their shopworn carnival bromides and three card monte, they will not only continue to wander around in the desert, but also fail the rest of us, for their navel gazing narcissism that fails to note we are currently up s*** creek and we need every paddle we can find.

[RMorrison]

Lost the election because Obama spent more money on Spanish language media? Are you nuts? When will Republicans wake up to the fact that Lee Atwater's era has finally been stamped into the dirt? Republicans lost because younger and more educated people registered and voted as Democrats. Moreover, the so called "social/values" bullshit failed to work on the rest of us. Let's hope it has died for a good long time.

Obama is putting together a team of incredibly intelligent and wise individuals who just might bring some sanity back to this country after a very long and scary period where ignorance has been celebrated as the only truly American leadership qualifier.

Mark 2008 down as the year when we crawled out from under our rock and realized that we better wake up and get some people in Washington who appeal to our higher selves. It has been a long dark nightmare for those of us who strive to educate our children and save for a rainy day. Perhaps the right wingers who rave on about "American Exceptionalism" in their ignorant, ungrammatical syntax and were so sure that we would reject Obama due to fear and predudice will now need to go back to the drawing boards and come up with a coherent message next time that reflects our hopes and aspirations rather than our fears.

[AxelDC]

They were surprised by the Hispanic vote? Did they not see Henry Bonilla (R-TX) go down to defeat in 2006 because Hispanics decided "Republicans hate Mexicans"?

You cannot vilify a group and expect their vote. Frankly, I'm surprised that McCain got a quarter of the gay vote and a third of the Latino vote the way Republicans treat them. They deserve the same treatment that blacks give Republicans, less than 10% support.

McCain ran a bad campaign, but he also chose to run as a Republican. He had the chance to switch parties in 2002 and refused. He was offered the VP under Kerry in 2004 and he refused. He cast his lot with George W. Bush and lost as a result.

McCain's biggest problem is that he blames others for his own failures. We already have a President who refuses to admit mistakes, so McCain would be following in very bad footsteps.

[truthbrigade]

Republicans are not the type that learns from mistakes; they're not the thinking bunch.

[LeLoup]

They can't learn from mistakes; instead, they create their own reality.

There is a word in the DSM-IV (the bible of psychiatric diagnoses) for that, but I don't remember it right now.

[toppergem]

Look at the demographic make up of the Republican party and tell me how they thought they had a chance getting the Hispanic vote? If the group is not represented in its membership why in the world would that group even think about voting for that political group? GOP you need to be far more inclusive instead of trying to be such a closed network of people, times they are a changing!

[Keo]

McInturff's comments are revealing-­--revealin­g of the damaged political intelligence of yet another top republican.
McInturff obviously assumes that the republican party lost the election. This is a widely shared view point among the republican "Intelligentsia" (I use that term VERY loosely). All of his comments derive from this assumption--that if McCain had run a better campaign he would have won.
That the failure of right wing economic, domestic, and foreign policies has become obvious to a majority of americans seems to be lost on these dunderheads. That the democrats ran such a compelling candidate also seems not to have captured their attention.
Here's hoping that the biggest voices in the republican party: Gingrich, Limbaugh, Dobson, Rove, and the rest, continue to ignore reality by keeping their heads well inserted into their nether regions. That will help to guarantee that the US will be spared the leadership of these ignorant buffoons for many years to come.

[truthbrigade]

"That will help to guarantee that the US will be spared the leadership of these ignorant buffoons for many years to come."

Yes, Let's savor this glorious conclusion.

Cheers!!!

[Mulvaney]

McInturff is right in some respects -- the election was closer than it should have been. It was not just the policies of the past 8 years, but the entire course of trickle-down deregulation that began with Reagan was crashing down. We went from having a large manufacturing base to being a creditor nation; the national debt went over ten trillion; wealth and income became concentrated even more in the hands of a few. We went from invading Grenada to invading Iraq under the doctrine of preemptive war. Medical costs left millions without care while the industry continued to profit. And Rove and other Republican operatives had been shown to dismiss their evangelical base as "out of control" "nuts."

McCain offered a history of Keating, deregulation, and more of the same. That left Sarah Palin, Joe the Unlicensed Plumber, and negative campaigning. So in the face of this, how did McCain get any votes??? I guess I could see why Cindy would vote for him, but when he was ahead in the polls, I was truly incredulous. Fortunately, enough people decided that a smart black guy was the way to go. But we still have a ways to go.

[jackbutler5555]

The finger pointing is to be expected when a party loses an election so decisively. Eventually that will end and the GOP will figure out what to do next. There are segments of the party who couldn't stand each other -- libertarians vs religious conservatives, for example. But the GOP has no choice but to reassemble its disparate elements and try again. None of the factions has the clout to go it alone.

Or, they just might wait for the Democrats to flail each other, a traditional Democratic celebration of victory. I see it's already happening.

There are no signs yet that either party has the discipline to continuously steamroll their opponents.

[goldenshaman]

Read Cialdini's book on Influence.

People don't change their beliefs just because those beliefs fail to produce results.

Many people voted beliefs that were invoked 20 years ago.

Fortunately, the GOP is the party of old people, and their base is dying off.

[snapshot1940]

I saw a poll where there was a trend for old, white men (over 65) to vote for Obama than younger, white men. I resent being grouped with the GOP just because I'm 69, A lot of us voted for Jack Kennedy and campaigned for Bobby and were in the crowd in Sacramento being insulted by Ronald Regan when we protested a Tuition increase at the State universities.
We may be dying out but we're not a in the GOP

[bobdob]

The really cool thing is that the guy many Republicans accused of being a wimp kicked the old war hero's ass. That's just great. This is a wonderful country.

[likeicare]

Hopefully, the Rethuglicans will continue to focus their efforts on outdated issues and failed strategies like the ones Frank Luntz, David Frum, Bill Kristol, Grover the Norquist, Brent the Bozell, et al, ad nauseum, insist upon -- it's certainly proven to be a winner for the Dems!

It's the philosophy, stupid!

When you base your entire party's philosophy on falsehood -- trickle-do­wn/laissez­-faire economics, fetus-worship, and 19th century social-Darwinism -- the outcome is enevitible: crash and burn!!!

[LightningJoe]

Typical profession­al-politic­ian horse-racing.

It's never about what they did, but how they did it. It's never about what they said, it's that they "didn't get their message out." It's never about their record, it's that their record is being "distorted­." (by the truth?)

It's never that they suck, it's that the media is in the bag for (the smart, articulate, principled, presidential one).

[boomachine]

how about this genius.
people rejected what mccains stands for

[wm1066]

And there in lies the rub. mccain didn't stand for anything but attacking his opponent. He offered no real policies, just that he would make everything right. No plan, no ideas. He flip flopped his way through the campaign. And said some goofy things along the way.

[greenlightwilly]

Oh good grief - this is just so pathetic. No one (except for maybe Luntz) could be THAT moronic. No way this was the whole story - it has to be taken out of context. Surely he must have said somewhere in there that 'we made our share of mistakes' or 'the Palin pick turned out to be a boomerang'.

[BobSacomano]

Frankly I was shocked that he got as many votes as he did, with all that going against him almost half the country STILL voted for him. This country is full of "folks" who constantly vote against their best interests.

[TruckerJohn]

Well said Bobsacomano, not only in the US, Margaret Thatcher in the UK managed to con British blue collar voters to become Conservatives in the Eighties, and when they did she privatised everything, sold these state owned utilities to her cronies who then sacked the very same voters.
British Rail is a classic example of what happens when Right wing ideological lunatics like Thatcher gain control, the once affordable rail network is now expensive , accident prone, overcrowded, and unreliable, but then Maggie was a big fan of Reagan!

[KathyinCT]

Gee, he manages to blame everyone, everything . . . . . . except McCain saying stupid things ("fundamentals are strong"), McCain approving nasty negative ads ("I'm John McCain, and I approved this messsage"), McCain hiring guys like Schmidt to run his campaign and then listening to their bad advice ("suspend the campaign") and oh, gosh, how about McCain picking Palin.

McCain's peeps need to quit crying boo hoo and blaming the loss on everyone except the person whose decisions were spectacularly awful:

John McCain.

[DeniseD]

Sarah Palin was the biggest mistake John McCain could have made. As soon as the public started to get to know her, his numbers plummeted.

It is amazing to me that so few Republicans are actually blaming Sarah Palin for the loss. They all talk about how she energized the base, but they don't talk about all of the harm she did by driving Independents, Reagan Democrats, and center leaning Republicans away from the ticket.

[badtimes]

My thoughts exactly. Picking Palin did nothing to help them with moderates, which is where they needed to pick up votes. Nailing down the base was stupid- die-hard Republicans weren't going to stray from the fold anyway. The fear mongering should've insured their turnout.

[flabingo]

The more important thing is that he would have been totally over his head in terms of having the capacity to govern. Pinch yourself!!!