McCain's Romney Blunder
If Republican contender John McCain loses two things did him in. One he couldn't control. That was the economy, not its collapse, but when it collapsed. In a look at how six of eight presidents fared since 1948 when the economy went on the rocks or appeared to go on the rocks, three were beaten and three beat back their challengers. If the economy went bad toward the end of a president's term voters were much more likely to blame and punish not just the president but also his party.
McCain was not Bush as he pointedly reminded Obama in their last debate. But he was the GOP presidential standard bearer, and he had to take the heat for the GOP's perceived economic sins. That hurt and hurt bad, and McCain's slogans and shouts about country first, and his subtle and open knocks at Bush and the GOP couldn't change that.
However, he could do something about his vice-presidential pick. But what did he do. He picked an untutored political novice for his VP who turned out to be SNL laughingstock fodder. He gambled that she could bag a big swatch of disgruntled Hillary Democratic women, rev up the Christian fundamentalists, and burnish his claim to be the Washington outsider. He left Vegas with his pockets picked clean on that one.
This was the biggest single reason why long time rock solid GOP Party regulars and a slew of Reagan and W Bush and Bush Sr. appointees did the unprecedented. They jumped ship to back Obama.
That never would have happened if McCain had done the personally smart and politically sensible thing and picked Mitt Romney as his VP choice.
The reasons for Romney went way beyond McCain's image problem and party doubts. He like Obama sold himself as the change guy who could go to Washington cut the cronyism, bureaucratic and congressional inertia, and restore public confidence. Despite all the maverick talk McCain could not shake his image as the walking embodiment of the much loathed Washington insider establishment.
Romney could have made a credible case that as a businessman and a true fiscal conservative who did business the right way, and that's not through banking, stock and brokerage conniving, speculation, wheeling dealing, and fraud. He could have helped ease the fears and the banking and big businesses of even more shocks, meltdowns, and instability. Since much of investor panic even terror is more psychology and perception of more economic doom, this would have been a major GOP and voter selling point.
Far more than McCain, Romney would have been able to make a credible case that he was not a partisan GOP hack but a Republican who actually had to embrace bipartisan politics as governor of top heavy Democratic Massachusetts who reached across the aisles to Democrats to get anything done. Getting a model health care package was a prime example of that. This would have been another colossal selling point on the campaign trail to voters.
Palin was plopped on the ticket to get social conservatives to flood the polls on Election Day. The problem is that Palin as events amply showed was a social conservative with a mini-telephone book of negatives and what she gave she also took away. Romney is a social conservative, but he's also one that social conservatives like, have confidence in, and would also have gotten behind albeit if not exactly with passion. But that would've mattered little since they had little passion for McCain. And it was the wildest stretch to think that social conservatives en masse would've voted for Obama, or would have stayed home. In the end Romney may not have been Bush, but he wasn't McCain either, and with no where else for conservatives to go, Romney would have been a plus with them.
Romney was a decade younger than McCain. Age, as race with Obama, was incessantly gabbed about as a great X Factor, for McCain. A final election days CNN poll showed that race was less a problem for Obama than originally feared. Yet a big percentage of voters still said they had huge reservations about McCain, because of his age, his health. That fear led back to Palin. There was stark horror among untold numbers of voters at the thought of having her a heartbeat away from the presidency. Romney would have done a lot to take the age and health fear offs the liability table. That would have even been more the case since the most successful presidents have been governors (with one very current exception). They bring the administrative and management skills crucial to the office.
This, of course, is just another of the great what ifs or better what might have beens of campaign 2008. Romney was not the choice, and what has to be an even dumber move apparently was not asked to play any substantial role in the campaign. That just compounded McCain's Romney blunder.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
McCain /Romney would have been a very unlikeable ticket. I would not have voted for them. McCain is not the same as he used to be. I never knew he could be so mean and downright dirty with his ads and his tactics. I always thought him to be upstanding and deal with the issues, but he has not done that. Somebody sold him a bill of goods.
It's not over yet. Who knows what he will pull out of his bag of tricks.
m&m's, would' ve been the slogan.
I basically agree with the thesis of this article, but, that being said: McCain/Romney would've lost to Obama too. I actually believe that a sizable portion of Christian conservatives WOULD HAVE STAYED HOME had Romney been on the ticket. Still the voting margins arguably would have been closer then the kind we're about to witness on November 4th. Let me remind you: Gallup is not doing a daily tracking poll for almost 2 weeks now.
Agreed. McCain should have picked Huckabee. It would have been mavericky - not a stunt - and it would have made the religious crazies happy.
Two problems: Huckabee seems to be a real (Biblical) Christian, not a crazy. And he's a lot smarter than McCain. Would have been an interesting pick.
I like Mike Huckabee,he was my favorite Republican in the primaries.I like Barack better,but Mike at least seemed like the least slimy of the Repubs.( I think most people are a lot smarter then John McCain)
Romney as a change agent? Ha! At the first Repub debate, he was asked what's wrong with America. His answer? 'Nothing!'. Romney has flip-flopped on more issues than McCain, and would have had to spend the campaign defending himself. While Palin was a laughable choice as VP, Romney would have been just as bad.
If my grandmother had wheels she'd be a taxicab... or shoulda,woulda,couda....
Your theory is flawed by the assumption that anybody wanted the second seat on the straight balk express. As has been pointed out repeatedly,... the captain is no Mr. Congeniality.... which doesn't inspire greater minds to sign up for a ride to oblivion let alone an impending wreck
The problem with Romney is that between the two of them, they would have had about 17 houses. It would have been the wealthiest ticket to ever run a campaign and would have been difficult to come across as men of the people...
Romney was as much of loser as Palin; although his losses would have come by different means.
Obama beat Clinton and is beating McCain because while he went on being himself, both of his opponents strobed through personae trying to appeal to this block or that and trying to land a punch. The more we see of this behavior, the less we like it, and the better Obama looks.
And in a primary full of phonies, Mitt Romney stood head and shoulders above the others as the phoniest of the lot. He's not a good enough politician to hide it, so a six month long campaign would have been sure to bring his fundamental plasticity to the public's eye.
Romney (on top, especially) would have been a ticket I may have seriously considered. As it is, I am a proud Obama/Biden supporter all the way. So, as someone said before, thank goodness McCain's hostility got the best of him!!
Although come to think of it, I may have only considered a Romney/"somebody else" ticket. I think 2008 McCain may have still been a dealbreaker for me.
Same here.
i grew up in massachusetts. let me tell you that the conjecture that romney got along with democrats isn't really true. also, the health care mandate came about as the result of work that gov. deval patrick and sal dimasi (speaker of the MA house) did together, despite the fact that they hate each other. they're both democrats. people started to hate romney in massachusetts two weeks after he was sworn in, mostly because everyone knew that the only reason he ran was to burnish his credentials in preparation for a presidential run. a woman named shannon o'brien was the democratic challenger in that election, and she was possibly the least shrewd politician i have ever seen operate on that level (until sarah palin). also, see who bill weld endorsed for president - past republican governors of massachusetts have all been moderates, and would be democrats if they lived in ohio or tennessee.
Not so. Romney & the legislature did create the Mass Health Care Initiative,
which Romney signed in April of 2006, long before Patrick was on the scene.
It's not the greatest plan, in fact not even a great plan, but it *is* a plan, and it
was intended to show that Romney could achieve something of significance
& set him up for national prominence. It almost sort of worked, no?
The main problem with your argument that Romney got along with MA Demos
is that, in Massachusetts, the hugely Demo legislature (about 90% majority)
really prefers a Repo governor, as they tend to be politically powerless AND
useless, which was the case with Romney, AND they present an illusion of
two-party governance. Nice thought, though.
Yes, let's get down to business... Has any politician ever run a more disciplined, more focused, professional, consistently on-message campaign than Obama? He has out-performed every challenger (including Hillary), on every metric used in modern campaigning. From the use of the Internet (see Obama’s iPhone app), down to local neighborhoods, his organization is without peer. The skill, vision, and real leadership Obama and his team have shown will be studied in business schools for years to come, and will hopefully appear in the White House in January.
Now, let's contrast Obama's campaign with the McCain campaign. I don't think even Mitt could have stopped this train wreck. Palin is the most egregious miscalculation of a campaign full of them... a female George W. Bush... however, the McCain we see today has no resemblance to the McCain of 2000. That McCain could have won an election. By the way, the odds of Gov Palin becoming president: four-to-one. I interviewed Bob Rice on Total Picture Radio -- a podcast at www.totalpicture.com, who ran the numbers. One example: the same odds as a hurricane hitting the state of Louisiana any given year.
The reason Obama's campaign is as you say is because it was run on a basis of truth. McCain's campaign has been bouncing around aimlessly based on the same BS of targeting various groups of voters, but he (and Palin) ended up alienating them all (except the dregs of the Base). McCain looks even worse because his opponent is not slinging BS mud. The final nail was the long promoted "hockey mom" wearing Saks/Neiman clothes - now they're trying to plug that hole ("1/3 of the clothes have gone back", "half were never worn anyway", "she mostly wears her own clothes while campaigning", etc which makes it even WORSE because now their saying such clothes were never needed in the first place.
This is a good article. I hadn't thought how close the race would be had Mitt Romney was VP candidate - over half of my/others negative views of the GOP would have no basis. So WHEW!!! I'm glad Palin was chosen - I want the current Repub bums out of the White House for good for 4 years. Even with Romney there would have been infighting - too many Repubs still want what's good for the minority "Base" and it wouldn't have been enough change. Interesting how the Republicans have split up between themselves now, when the Dems seemed to have no coherence before the race - maybe the Dems purposely acted that way to throw off the Repubs, but I don't think anyone is that smart.
You state the case well. This is the case of the best-run campaign in my lifetime against the worst-run campaign in memory. The juggernaut has sped along beautifuly from day one. Now, if it can just stay on track for 8 more days, we're in business.
Thank goodness McCain allowed his personal dislike of Romney to cloud his decision. I wonder how the election would have turned out had he picked Romney. I am sure Obama wouldn´t be up double digits with less than a fortnight to go. But, thankfully, McCain blew the VP choice and, as such, the election.
Why age turned out to be more of a factor: well, of course Palin, but I think as much as Americans feared that she might wind up President, the rigors of campaigning have proven more than McCain has been able to handle. He has remarkable stamina; I know as someone ten years younger, I could not get out on the campaign trail, day in and day out the way McCain has. But the part of the campaign that requires something between the ears has been lacking. There has been no strategy from the start. McCain's campaign grasps one straw after another, has no overall vision, and seems unequal to anything more intellectually rigorous than angry white populism--meaning Joe the Plumber for President and Obama is a terrorist commie. Though McCain's got a lot of experience, grimly defending tax cuts for the wealthy and a spending freeze for domestic programs as we enter the worst recession in our lifetimes, while throwing one ridiculous charge after another against his rival, has people scratching their heads. What if the new President is tested? Geez m'knees, let's hope it's not John McCain; the country will have a heart attack.
What about McCain, if he were to become POTUS, what would leave him incapicatated if his capabilities as a leader were tested by an immense emergency? Are their any SWAG's, Sophistocated, Wildly, Absurd, Guesses, out there? Any SWAG is acceptable. How well would Sarah function if John died in office? What would happen if McCain died a lingering death or was incapacitated as Wilson was & we had to wait till a new POTUS was elected? You can make these into moot questions on 11/4/08. Think about it.
after 8 years of bushism, all the voters smarter than angry white populism were long gone.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
