May 13, 2006 -- The Day that John McCain Lost the Election

Yes, it is a year for change. Yes Barack Obama knew that before most other politicians and capitalized on that with a unique and brilliant campaign that offered inspiration and principle to us in a consistent and explosive manner. We will elect him as our President tomorrow because he offers our country the best chance for the revival we desperately need.

But, May 13, 2006 is the day that John McCain lost the 2008 Presidential Election. My friend Mike Berman reminds me that that is the day he spoke at Liberty University. In my view, that day began the destruction of one of the best brands in American politics. It is the day that Senator McCain went to kiss the ring of Jerry Falwell, a right wing preacher who McCain had called "an agent of intolerance" in 2000. His visit's purpose was to court the evangelical voters and apologize for being the independent maverick he had been over the course of the last 15 years. He minimized the importance of the high visibility issues where he had broken with his party such as immigration, election reform, federal spending and the anti-gay constitutional amendment on marriage and promised that he would be a leader that the right wing could support and trust.

Earlier this year, many Democrats feared running against one candidate in this presidential Election - that candidate was John McCain. He was the one candidate in the Republican primary who everyone hoped wouldn't win. Sure the deeply unpopular Bush Presidency created an atmosphere that favored Democrats this year. But many assumed that given McCain's special brand of independence, he was the one candidate that could distinguish himself from the President.

But May 13, 2006 changed John McCain in two key fundamental ways that have poisoned his campaign and doomed his chances to ever become President. It soured the media on him and it empowered the evangelical right at a time when their overall influence in the country was dwindling.

He minimized his differences on immigration, on election reform, and changed his support in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy. He began to support every anti-gay initiative he could find. On those and so many other issues, he merged into the George Bush and right wing clone that in these closing days of the campaign have choked him beyond breath. In short, he sold his soul to gain the nomination of his party. When he chose Sarah Palin and made the ultimate sacrifice to the right wing choosing a VP candidate who would energize the evangelical base but clearly lacked his standard of quality in public policy, it cemented his changed persona forever.

Many republicans complained that the media has favored Barrack Obama in this election. In effect they are forgetting that it was John McCain who perfected media relations in his last Presidential run in 2000. Yet those same media allies soured on McCain as he became more and more of a political robot in the Republican message machine and the authenticity they had experienced with him was lost as he tumbled into a pool of right wing muck. It was unattractive for him to court those who had previously dissed him and he had rightly rejected as putting their prejudice and narrow-mindedness above a unified and prosperous country. And his campaign handlers knew that he could no longer provide the access t the media that had once been his hallmark because there was just too much to challenge him on. A once guileless politician suddenly had his true beliefs to hide.

Didn't he know that his uniqueness for his friends in the media was that he didn't fit into those stereotypes for a politician? That his original brand of maverick - rather than the empty word it has become - was exactly the kind of candidate the media would have continued to revere? Perhaps they even would have more aggressively challenged the upstart heir to the outsider brand - Barack Obama - if the original was still around?

And didn't he realize that just as he was concluding that he needed the right wing zealots to win the Presidency, the country had already started to reject their falsely premised "values based" agenda?

No, John McCain didn't understand how a trip to Lynchburg, Virginia on May 16, 2006 would doom his presidential dreams forever.

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Comments

[anelder]

The subject that continues to perplex me is that so many people have no idea of what happened. I realize that that's what he depended upon; that so many people haven't the foggiest notion what and who they are voting for.

Whatever happens tomorrow, that so many did not see the best man always will remain a mystery.

[ChristyH]

The problem with the GOP is that is has run out of ideas - Period.. What does it stand for? What does it want to accomplish? The Democrats moved the ball down the field in the 60's - they led on civil rights and woman's rights.. By the 80's, I think that the GOP was the party of ideas... Love or hate Newt Gingrich, but the Contract with America had goals.... Reagan had goals - ending communism.­.. During the 80's, the Democratic party looked old and tired, the "tax & spend" answer to each & every questions.­.. And now, the GOP looks old and out of ideas.... Their answer to each and every question is "cut taxes"

Thanks heavens for Obama

[happytrails]

The GOP answer to every question is not simply to cut taxes. It is to cut taxes and CONTINUE TO SPEND, run up huge deficits, make sure that social programs go unfunded, and encourage the rich to get even richer.

[vb7ue]

I am completely dumbfounded by the media's blackout of the prank call to Palin!

Dont the citizens have a right to know what their Vice Presidential candidate really is? We are on the verge of electing a completely dumb person to the position of the most powerful person in the world! Wont it be shameful for US to elect such a woman? Or is it that it is so shameful to even print it?

In fact, the audio is the most hilarious thing I have ever heard.. and the most scary as well! She behaves like a schoolgirl­.. doesnt even know who Canada's PM is, when Canada is the centerpiece of her foreign policy experience?

Vishal

[LisaLisa1234]

The local pop radio station here in Memphis played it. They were rolling on the floor.

[Meffy]

Canada's PM is Stephen Harper. Nicolas Sarkozy is President of France.

But she got punk'd mighty good, that's for sure.

[Meffy]

Oops, I see the Canadian PM thing was a separate issue. Beg pardon; carry on.

[lewes17266]

LINK!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sean-gilfillan/dont-hire-palin-how-palin_b_122726.html

[kellygrrrl]

Lesson: When you invite the Zombies to the Party - sooner or later YOU will be dinner.

[FrancesP]

John McCain forgot that his supporters were not the far right but the independents. In one of his speeches he actually declared US a Christian nation. I remember Jon Stuart on the Daily show saying
'John, you may as well have spoken Yiddish, the right will not accept you and you are losing us'.
This was a prophecy that came true.

[JohnJames]

I think it was the McCain of 2000 that was the fabrication. During the 80's and 90's he had a perfect voting record against reproductive choice and gay rights. He even opposed the MLK holiday. He's an opportunist on social issues blowing whichever way is convenient because he fundamentally doesn't really care. In 2000 he moved to the center because Bush already had the fundamentalist vote locked up. McCain is a fraud.

[kellygrrrl]

The War within the GOP has barely yet begun. They will need to decide if they are going to be the Fiscal Conservative Capitalists or if they will be the NeoChristo­FascoParty­.

[FlamingLibrul]

Who could have predicted that McCain would hire the same people who smeared him in the 2000 election campaign, and stoop to perpetrating the same vile smear tactics that he suffered through? McCain surrendered his integrity and self-respect to win the Presidency. I find that simply tragic.

I also don't see how McCain can return to the Senate, after having run a campaign that encouraged the questionin­g/doubting of the Democratic Party's "Pro-Americanism" and Patriotism. It wasn't enough to disagree with his opponent(s); he willingly participated in attempted character assassination. I hope he will find the sense to regret his conduct.

[Defarge]

I doubt McCain will ever regret anything he has done . . He much to much of a narcissist. As deplorable as his conduct has been . . . he will NEVER see it that way. I hope and pray Obama wins, cuz if McCain/Palin gets in . . they will make Bush look like a carnival ride . .

[scooterdog]

I don't think he HAS the sense to regret it. Plus, regret isn't in a narcissist's vocabulary. I hope Az has a good democratic senate candidate next election. Then McCain can lose his final election and be gone.

[MomWithTwoHeads]

Hilary, I have a question. How could McCain have gotten the nomination had he NOT given that speech?

I agree with your point, otherwise.

[robotfog]

he could have run as an independent. Which is what he should have done. Not that I'd vote for him after the torture flip flop

[ManuOB1]

McCain repeats the mantra, "I am not George Bush." The problem is, he's not John McCain, either. He sold his soul when he hired that same firm that trashed him in 2000 in NC to run his toxic 2008 campaign.
He didn't put "Country First" when he picked the invetted Palin. He repeated lies and half-truths.

"What does it profit a man to gain the presidency but lose his soul in the process?"

Tomorrow I long to see the headline: America to McCain/Pal­in---"Than­ks, but no thanks."

[rwhiteside]

You are right and I agree. Yet yet yet. If McCain had not embraced that vile wing of the party, he never ever ever would have achieved the Republican nomination. Without that vile base, no person in this time can get to the November election for president. So what's your point then?

Had McCain stayed true to himself, Romney or some fool would have gotten the nomination. i don't think McCain had a choice. I find it repulsive that McCain took it as far as he did. There used to be a path to the Republican nomination that included an immediate turn to the middle for the main election. McCain forgot that.

The Republican party needs to have a long dark winter of the soul, so it can extricate itself from those intolerant anti-constitutional right wing loonies. Republicans need to go for the middle. If a reasonable socially tolerant-fiscally conservative candidate ran, he'd probably win. Even as a strong progressive Obama supporter, I am under no illusions that it takes a highly charismatic leader like Obama to cut through the reality that the USA is a pretty backwards conservative nation. The problem for Repoublicans is getting through the quagmire of the right wing loonies.

After eight years of Obama progressive success, I hope the US returns to its progressive roots, but Obama needs to have some major successes for that to happen.

[neurogrl]

In 2004 I lived in Arizona and because he backed Bush with such gusto, he lost my vote that year and further solidified my decision to not vote for him ever since. I'm thrilled to say though that I'm not voting against him in this election, I'm voting FOR Barack Obama.

[paxorbis]

He lost the election that day, or
... Or the day he chose Palin as VP,
... Or the day he said the fundamentals of the economy were strong,
... Or the day he "suspended" his campaign to Fix the Economy
... Or the day he said he would vote against the immigration bill he had first introduced, or when he loosened hist opposition to torture
... Or the day he secured the services of Karl Rove wannabes

ONE MORE DAY, LET'S VOTE!

[spinoza]

I complete agree with the astute "NORTHSTAR11" regarding the fact that Obama has been an utter disappointment as well regarding keeping religion and politics at a very, very long arm's length as the wisest of our Founding Fathers tried their best to assure.

This commentary is but a sad, predictable epitaph to an imagined "independent minded maverick' MaCain doing what all ambitious politicians do... PANDER to the base of their party. They become slaves to the moment... the polls.... and blinded by their lust for power. I

t is also emblematic that the erstwhile GOP has been for years, copted by the moronic, wedge-issue evangelical christians­... and national office republicans know they must grovel at the feet of their lemming-leaders, like Dobson et al, to get the church buses to the polls.

This is all but a larger reflection of the palpable adolescence of americans in general... clinging to magical thinking about a sky-god... end-times and goofy notions of "rapture". I wonder how many have actually read the "heretical" writings of Madison, Jefferson and Franklin. Franklin in particular had a powerful respect for those of his time who had the courage to follow the dictates of their conscience, despite great personal peril and declare themselves "nonbelievers'. Sadly, Obama is not of their mettle.

[tck29]

You are right. All US politicians have to pander to Christians in order to get elected. What happens is that intelligent, and reasonable people have to lie about their faith. The predictable result is that they all have to say "God bless America" as if that actually means something.­..

[deeppeace]

I'm glad to hear someone say that the MSM is not in the tank for Obama per se, but for a candidate who is consistent and honorable in his message and his techniques. I don't think the media contest would have been anywhere near as one-sided if the GOP candidate had been someone else. Can't name one, based on the primaries, but... That's a consideration - a big one - for 2012.