McCain didn't have a prayer of winning.

[azmouse]

http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/mccain/articles/2008/11/09/20081109mccain-campaign1109.html

Vote in the poll next to this article:
Are you pleased with the outcome of the presidential race?
Yes 57.76%
No 42.24%
Total Votes: 16136



John McCain ran a mistake-prone and at times erratic campaign for the White House. He rolled the dice on the unknown and untested Sarah Palin as his running mate. He never articulated a clear message to voters about his candidacy.

But the emerging postmortem consensus of political experts is that the Arizona Republican really didn't have a prayer of winning no matter what he did.

McCain was anchored to the historically unpopular outgoing GOP President Bush and faced a hostile electorate looking for a new direction. Add to that the worst financial crisis in generations and ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And his Democratic opponent, President-elect Barack Obama, is a true American political phenomenon, one of the most gifted orators of his time.
"Everything was going to go the wrong way for the Republicans, in general, because of the negatives that President Bush had. When you combine the war, the economy, the gas prices - it's a hell of a thing," said Alberto Gutier, a longtime Phoenix Republican activist and diehard McCain supporter.

Obama defeated McCain on Tuesday in an Electoral College landslide. Obama won 52 percent of the popular vote to McCain's 46 percent.


*snip*

"Our polls and national polls showed that most people by a 2-to-1 margin blamed Bush and the Republicans more than the Democrats for getting us into the mess, and they believed that Obama was more likely to get us out of it. So I'm not sure what he could have done, to tell you the truth," Merrill said.

Absent a colossal Obama blunder or an unexpected foreign-policy challenge, there was little hope for McCain. "Without something like that, even if McCain had run the most brilliant and efficient campaign in the world, I don't think the outcome would have been much different," said John J. "Jack" Pitney Jr., a government professor at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California.

[Eric J in MN]

1. CNN says 53-46.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/

[azmouse]

6. That's great.

I haven't seen any undated numbers on the election for a few days.

[Betsy Ross]

2. On the contrary,

prayer was about all he had. You know, the fundies. And it takes an organized campaign to win an election (in most cases).

[ikojo]

3. The money quote from this article

"There is a generational and ethnic change going forward in this country that the Republican Party just seems to be unaware of. They ran this campaign as if the country is entirely composed of 55-year-old, lower-middle-class White people," Mezey said. "That's not the country I'm seeing here, and if the party sees the future as Sarah Palin and small-town America, then we're looking at a long, long Democratic ascendancy."


Younger pugs are more socially liberal than their parents that's for sure. One of my fundie raised nephews voted in his first presidential election and he voted for OBAMA.

[msongs]

4. apologist garbage - palin + a smear/fear campaign cannot be brushed off even by AZ people

This article tries to make McCain a VICTIM rather than being responsible for his own political/campaign decisions!

The appalling ignorance of Sarah Palin and her daily attendance at what could pass for KKK rallies did have an effect on the outcome.

John McCain acted like a befuddled man unable to run his own campaign effectively. He is to blame, as much as Bush or being tied to Bush.

Revisionist history indeed!

Msongs

[azmouse]

5. Considering this is an AZ newspaper that supported McCain I was surprised

they were even this 'fair' (if that is that right word) about his poorly run campaign.

For whatever the reason, this was destined to be a Democratic year and we'll now have someone to be proud of in the WH.

[tularetom]

7. Is McCain really that popular in AZ to begin with?

I mean he has no roots in the state. He is from Arizona like boosh is from Texas, a child of priveleged parents who basically fucked up everything he ever touched, until he hooked up with a wealthy woman who happened to be from Arizona. Certainly doesn't sound like an example of the old western frontier spirit of independence to me. I'd resent it if I lived there.

[lonestarnot]

8. I don't know why, if that is true. He hasn't done shit for us in years. Check us out!

We are at the bottom of the fucking heap on any fucking thing that matters except richies.

[azmouse]

10. Whatever popularity McCain may have once had is gone.

This campaign has woken up a lot of people here and I'd be very surprised if he won, or even tried for, another term.

[blm]

18. The truth in that sentiment though is that the best known GOPs would not show up for McCain

in 2007-8 the way they did for Bush every day from 2000-2005. Hell, Bush even had the best known Democrats siding with him on TV before the 2004 election, including Bill Clinton and, sadly, even Joe Biden back then. Mccain did everything he could to campaign for Bush in 2004.

Huge difference in 2008. McCain couldn't even DARE have Bush show up for him in any public way, and, by 2008 most of the other best known GOPs were just as unpopular as Bush.

[Prodigalone]

9. I'm more than pleased

That we were not stuck with the second version of George W.

[azmouse]

11. Welcome to DU

I share that sentiment. The country could not survive another Boosh-like pResidency.

[blm]

12. The GOP nominee didn't have a prayer of winning 2008 by fall of 2006.

.

[Honeycombe8]

14. Sure he did. If McCain hadn't gone berzerk during the financial crisis, and if he'd...

if he'd chosen a serious VP candidate, and if Obama hadn't handled the financial crisis so well....we would be looking at a President McCain in January 2009.

Obama didn't break away in a clear lead until very recently. McCain hit 50% of the voting public several times before then. He came close.

[blm]

16. No....that was corpmedia polling based on THEIR idea of likely voters. The generic Dem

was the choice of American voters by the fall of 2006. That never really changed, though the media did its best to PRETEND that it did.

[Honeycombe8]

13. So the Repubs would have Americans believe......NOW. Truth is, he came close.

Obama was not voted as President just because he was any ol' face-in-the-crowd non-Republican. That's what Republicans would like everyone to think.

Truth is...Americans voted for Obama's temperament, oratory skills, ability to communicate, positions on key issues, ability to run an excellent campaign, his speech against the Iraq War in 2002, IN ADDITION TO being voted for because he was the antithesis to Bush and the horrors of the last 8 years.

McCain came close to winning. It is conceivable that had McCain handled the financial crisis better than he did, had he chosen a REAL VP candidate, and had Obama NOT handled the financial crisis well, we would now have President-Elect "My Friends" McCain.

[treestar]

15. He got 53% of the vote, and 57% are happy he own

Is Obama winning some of them over already?

[ecstatic]

17. His "prayer" was for a silent racist majority to show up at the polls

on November 4th. But that didn't happen :)

[democrattotheend]

19. I disagree, and i feel like this line of thought diminishes Obama's (and our) accomplishment

Yes, McCain was anchored to an unpopular president, which was obviously a disadvantage. But Obama is a black man with a Muslim-sounding name running in a country that has a history of racism and a lot of xenophobia to this day about Muslims. He was a state senator 4 years ago and many people thought he didn't have enough experience. He had to contend with vicious smears and rumors and hate-mongering. These challenges far exceeded McCain being hamstrung by Bush, IMO. Obama won because he ran an incredible campaign, overcame the fear-mongering, built an army of volunteers and ran a terrific ground operation, and inspired people who had never even voted before to vote, volunteer and give money. Despite the political climate, I still see Obama's victory as a triumph against the odds, and I think those who say McCain never had a chance diminish how much Obama and the people who supported him accomplished.

[azmouse]

21. A much, much better Rep candidate might have had a VERY slight chance

but after the mess of the Boosh years, the Democratic candidate had the best chance this year. That in no way diminishes what President-Elect Barack Obama (I never get tired of hearing that) has done. He is an amazing man who ran an amazing campaign and against whom any Rep candidate would have had an up-hill struggle.

[Deja Q]

20. Seemed a tad easy, wouldn't you say?

:wow: