|
McCain's biggest downfall was that he sold his soul to the republican base to win the nomination.
Other paths he could have/should have taken are
1)He could have left the republican party after voting against the Bush tax cuts, that he opposed for good reason. He could have become an independent and challenged Bush in 2004, (He possibly could have won a 3 way race against Bush and Kerry) or still waited until this year but run as an independent.
This way he wouldn't have had to tack hard right in a year when the right is taking a beating. Not to mention he's not a very good salesman making his current pitch because he doesn't believe it himself.
2) He could have run as a maverick to get the republican nomination instead of selling out. Giuliani and Romney were splitting the supply side/pro business vote, and Huckabee was getting the religious vote, he still won the nomination because of the national security voters and independents, but he married himself to Bush along the way.
He could have stuck to his guns, picked Tom Ridge to be VP (puts Pennsylvania in the toss up column, if not in the bank) and basically tells the pro-life part of the base "who else are you going to vote for?"
Then he could have talked about nothing but national security and experience for the past 6 months.....and the race would likely be a dead heat right now.
__________________
sig too big
|