Posted by
Marc T. on Wednesday, November 05, 2008 10:33:06 PM
Well after two years of campaigning we finally have the next President of the United States, Barack Obama. Up to the final days, the McCain camp, fellow Republicans and certain pundits said that it was going to be a close election and if everything falls the right way, McCain has a chance to win. In hindsight, this election was decided months ago, nothing fell McCain's way and McCain will go down in history as another Bob Dole, with no chance to win against a charismatic Democratic opponent.
Now if you read by earlier blogs, long before the primaries had produced Obama and McCain as the winners of their respective parties nomination, I had guaranteed a Republican win. I guess I am no Nostradamus but there were factors no one could have expected and others I analyzed wrong.
1)No one saw the economic meltdown of the housing,financial and overall stock market. Its true that people vote their pocketbook and with less money in their 401k's McCain never had a chance. Voters will blame the party in power.
2)Along the same lines, I under estimated the unpopularity of President Bush. The economic melt down and the war (which was never an issue because of the economy) had Bush's popularity rating hovering around 20%. McCain never distanced himself from him and Obama attacked him relentlessly for it. If McCain was smart he would have attacked the President and his non-conservative policies (domestic spending) and attacked Republicans as a whole. He had no problem doing this in 2000. If he really wanted to distanced himself from the administration, he would have votedagainst the bailout package. This would have differentiated himself from Obama and give the electorate a real choice on the economy. Overall, there were many mistakes his campaign had. Too many to list here.
3)McCain never connected with the base of the party and conservatives. Most polls said that a lot of voters were voting for McCain as “the lessor of two evils” and anti-Obama. They didn't believe in the person. Early on in the primary he said the right things and attended the right conferences but many conservatives like myself (McCain was the lessor of two evils in my eyes) saw right through it. I still believe that Palin was a good choice and did energize the base, but voters, in general vote for the top of the ticket.
4)What happened to McCain the fighter? For someone who's campaign was broke and on the brink of dropping out, and fought back to win the nomination, he lost the fire in the general election. For some reason the attack dog side of McCain was absent. He wanted to take “the high road” and reach across party lines, see what that got him, nothing!!!! You don't see the Democrats do this, they play for keeps and take no prisoners.
5)I greatly underestimated the turnout of minorities and younger voters. In most elections there have always been high expectations of these two voting blocks to come out to vote mostly for Democrats, just to never show up on election day. This time around, they came out in droves for Obama. I can see the minorities having a viable candidate this time but the youth? Does it come as a surprise, well yes and no. Yes because it does buck the trend and no, by seeing all the young voters in Obama rallies looking on in awe, crying and believing that they are seeing something out of this world. He memorized the audience in a hypnotic way. I have to admit it, Obama has a way with connecting with his supporters that makes Bill Clinton look bad. I haven't seen anything like it. Its almost scary. I love my politics but if my guy Romney would have won it all, you would see me ecstatic but not balling my eyes out.
Overall, this was an election that was a reflection on the economy and the popularity of the man in charge. I don't think that this is a shift towards the left as a nation, its all part of the cycle that both parties go though. I do see Republicans picking up seats two years from now making strides to regain power but it all depends on how successful Obama becomes.