Worst Campaign Ever?

[agentS]

Source: Newsweek

The GOP presidential campaign of 2008 will certainly be one that historians discuss for years to come. But not in the way that some Republicans had hoped for when they selected an experienced maverick, loved by the media, to face off against an inexperienced African-American who had trouble vanquishing his opponent in the primaries.

To be fair, the odds were stacked against any Republican. The economy has suffered while the incumbent president was phenomenally unpopular. Democrats were well organized and well financed. They found, in Barack Obama, an exceedingly charismatic and dynamic candidate.

But nothing is inevitable in American politics. A strong campaign, combined with the issue of race and fears about Obama's inexperience, could have produced a different outcome.

History is filled with examples of campaigns marked by bad decisions and poor performances that undermined their chances of victory. In 1964, Republican Barry Goldwater made statements that allowed President Lyndon Johnson to depict him as a candidate too far out of the American mainstream. Eight years later, Richard Nixon returned the favor to Democratic Sen. George McGovern, who had put together a campaign that appealed to the New Left and other activists inspired by 1960s activism but failed to bring in traditional Democratic constituencies such as organized labor. In 1988, Democrat Michael Dukakis was the proverbial deer in the headlights when Republican Vice President George H.W. Bush and his team redefined the technocratic Massachusetts Democrat into an extreme card-carrying ACLU liberal who let out murderers on weekend furloughs. Bush then stumbled in 1992 with his tin ear about the economic recession. In 1996, Republican Robert Dole ran a lethargic campaign that emphasized nostalgia and suspicion while President Bill Clinton ran around the country boasting about peace and prosperity. During the last election, Sen. John Kerry didn't adequately defend himself against "Swift-Boat" attacks.

But Team McCain ran a campaign that ranks on the bottom of this list. This was an aimless and chaotic operation made worse by poor choices at key moments.

Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/id/167561

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Mistake #1: Picking Sarah Palin or as we like to call her Sarah Failin.
Agree or disagree?

Mistake #2: Going negative/dark. Other conservatives were more positive than McCain.
Agree or disagree?

Mistake #3: No coherent state-by-state strategy. Every other candidate had a plan. McCain had no plan.
Agree or disagree?

Mistake #4: Stopping the campaign and mishandling the Wall St. Crisis . McCain looked confused and unpresidential.
Agree or disagree?

Mistake #5: Not using the Joe the Plumber argument effectively. They could have cast Obama's tax plan as outside the mainstream but didn't.
Agree or disagree?

[lligrd]

1. Maybe Now McCain Knows What A Community Organizer Does

Organizes communities to win campaigns.

[Raschel]

2. The biggest thing to me: McCain offered nothing. No message, no plan, no hope. Nothing.

[Twinguard]

5. Bingo!!

[curse of greyface]

3. Sarah Palin takes the cake. nt

[devilgrrl]

4. Not using the Joe the Plumber argument effectively?

What? The guy's a FRAUD! :wtf:

[Indenturedebtor]

7. The only people Joe the Plumber appealed to was McBush supporters who thought they were smarter than

everyone else in the country "Oh this is gonna play well, blah blah". I never heard anyone actually say that Joe the Plumber was in any way factoring into their decisions.

That whole gambit was about as compelling as someone trying to convince you that plastic fruit tastes good. Completely hollow.

[onehandle]

6. "the odds were stacked against any Republican"

Most true. Any Dem we ran was going to win.

[Patriought]

8. Worst campaign my ass...

McCain and Palin want someone to blame? Find a mirror.