What was it that killed McCain in the polls?

[Snake Doctor]

After the republican convention, McCain was up slightly in the polls. Since the stock market collapse and ensuing credit crisis, his numbers have steadily dropped.

I think what hurt him more than anything was his response to the crisis.

By his response to the crisis, I mean the fact that first he said the fundamentals of the economy are strong.....then tried to say that by fundamentals he meant American workers (which I don't think anyone bought, even GW Bush doesn't torture the English language that badly)

Then he suspended his campaign (but not really, and not before doing an interview with Katie Couric and making an appearance with Bill Clinton) and asked for the debate to be delayed.

Then went to Washington and basically did nothing, then unsuspended his not really suspended campaign and went to the debate, even though a deal hadn't been passed.....and then the bailout package was voted down, and it wasn't until after he got out of the way that a bill was passed.

To borrow a word from the Obama campaign, he really did look "erratic", while Obama was calm and measured, and managed to point out that Presidents have to do more than one thing at a time.

[d-null]

don't you think that people realizing more and more how scary it would be to have Palin next in line to the presidency contributed to it as well?

[2012]

[After Shock Media]

Changing the direction and "idea" of his campaign like a hundred times or so.
Then going ultra dirty nearly full time in ads - Just did not play well this time. Really think people expected something serious this time with crisis facing everyone and all.

Then I think the net played a big role this year.

[Snake Doctor]

Originally Posted by d-null

don't you think that people realizing more and more how scary it would be to have Palin next in line to the presidency contributed to it as well?

Possible.

The thing is, after he picked Palin, his numbers shot up big time....he had a huge convention bounce and it wasn't because of his speech.

Conventional wisdom seems to be the financial crisis....BUT...other things happened about the same time. The first debate where Obama looked "presidential" and it was the first time alot of swing voters really paid attention to either of them.....and that's about when the new car smell wore off of Palin and people started looking under the hood and didn't like what they saw.

[Snake Doctor]

Originally Posted by After Shock Media

Changing the direction and "idea" of his campaign like a hundred times or so.
Then going ultra dirty nearly full time in ads - Just did not play well this time. Really think people expected something serious this time with crisis facing everyone and all.

Then I think the net played a big role this year.

It was funny how McCain was saying in the debate that Obama doesn't know the difference between a strategy and a tactic.....because the McCain campaign had no strategy, it just went from tactic to tactic trying to win news cycles to get free media.

There could be 100 reasons Obama wins, if he wins....I'm just asking what you think was the tipping point, or what caused things to tip...because it was right after the financial crisis/first debate/Palin scrutiny/McCain being erratic time, that the polls made a big shift to Obama and stayed that way.

[pocketkangaroo]

Originally Posted by Snake Doctor

Possible.

The thing is, after he picked Palin, his numbers shot up big time....he had a huge convention bounce and it wasn't because of his speech.

Conventional wisdom seems to be the financial crisis....BUT...other things happened about the same time. The first debate where Obama looked "presidential" and it was the first time alot of swing voters really paid attention to either of them.....and that's about when the new car smell wore off of Palin and people started looking under the hood and didn't like what they saw.

I think it was inevitable but probably a mix of everything. The financial situation hurt a lot, but don't underestimate Palin. His numbers shot up after picking her, but that's because no one really knew her. Just the narrative they were being fed. After her embarrassing interviews, corruption issues, and odd beliefs got brought forward, people started swaying away.

I'd also mention that most candidates get a bounce during their convention that goes down afterwards. FiveThirtyEight.com did a historical analysis of it and had it pegged to a T.

[Tempest]

- Financial crisis..
- Sitting at the table saying nothing while Obama asked intelligent questions etc.
- Palin
- Being republican
- Attack ads
- Erratic, changing messages all the time
- Voting with Bush most times
- Palin getting all the press, most negative.
- Continuing Iraq war

and on and on....

[SoloGirlsContent]

Originally Posted by d-null

don't you think that people realizing more and more how scary it would be to have Palin next in line to the presidency contributed to it as well?

yea I 'm surprised that wasn't at the top of POLLS

HIS VP PICK WAS FUCKED UP

[DaddyHalbucks]

Poor folk, single women, and welfare mothers want to be taken care of and coddled by government. Welfare and universal health care are their opiates.

Many people, especially blacks, have openly stated that they are primarily supporting Obama because they want to elect our first black President. Union workers who don't mind government corruption, as long as it favors them, they are all aboard. All the leftist ideologues, the socialists, and everyone obsessed with race, class, and gender --they are all backing Obama in droves.

So, what you have is this landslide of entitlement seekers.

Me, me, me, ME FIRST. Gimme, gimme, GIMME. I want it now, now, NOW.

The bottom line is: every scumbag on the planet is backing Obama. Every lousy corrupt union, every radical leftist group, every deadbeat who ever wanted to collect while doing nothing ---they are all on the bandwagon. The media has been in the bag for a while.

This is what is driving the Obama tsunami.

It's time to pray for America (and I am not even religious).

[tony286]

Originally Posted by DaddyHalbucks

Poor folk, single women, and welfare mothers want to be taken care of and coddled by government. Welfare and universal health care are their opiates.

Many people, especially blacks, have openly stated that they are primarily supporting Obama because they want to elect our first black President. Union workers who don't mind government corruption, as long as it favors them, they are all aboard. All the leftist ideologues, the socialists, and everyone obsessed with race, class, and gender --they are all backing Obama in droves.

So, what you have is this landslide of entitlement seekers.

Me, me, me, ME FIRST. Gimme, gimme, GIMME. I want it now, now, NOW.

The bottom line is: every scumbag on the planet is backing Obama. Every lousy corrupt union, every radical leftist group, every deadbeat who ever wanted to collect while doing nothing ---they are all on the bandwagon. The media has been in the bag for a while.

This is what is driving the Obama tsunami.

It's time to pray for America (and I am not even religious).

giving poor folk money is bad but bailing out banks, 700k tax cuts to ceo's, giving sub cities to business that make billions of dollars is good? You got to be fucking kidding me. lol

[pocketkangaroo]

Originally Posted by DaddyHalbucks

Poor folk, single women, and welfare mothers want to be taken care of and coddled by government. Welfare and universal health care are their opiates.

Many people, especially blacks, have openly stated that they are primarily supporting Obama because they want to elect our first black President. Union workers who don't mind government corruption, as long as it favors them, they are all aboard. All the leftist ideologues, the socialists, and everyone obsessed with race, class, and gender --they are all backing Obama in droves.

So, what you have is this landslide of entitlement seekers.

Me, me, me, ME FIRST. Gimme, gimme, GIMME. I want it now, now, NOW.

The bottom line is: every scumbag on the planet is backing Obama. Every lousy corrupt union, every radical leftist group, every deadbeat who ever wanted to collect while doing nothing ---they are all on the bandwagon. The media has been in the bag for a while.

This is what is driving the Obama tsunami.

It's time to pray for America (and I am not even religious).

Oh please, like you have an independent brain cell in your body. Your posts are just copy/paste jobs from whatever conservative blog you come across that day. No independent thought, no critical thinking, you are the kind of people that got us into this mess. Let's "pray" for our country if Obama wins. I mean he might get us into a pointless war, run up our national debt, and fuck up the economy. Oh wait, someone beat him to it.

Speaking of entitlements, your administration gave out more in loans to billionaires in the past few months than we'll hand out in entitlements in the next 10 years.

[pocketkangaroo]

Originally Posted by tony404

giving poor folk money is bad but bailing out banks, 700k tax cuts to ceo's, giving sub cities to business that make billions of dollars is good? You got to be fucking kidding me. lol

He won't respond to you because he can't. No conservative site has a response to that and he can't think for himself.

[2012]

Originally Posted by DaddyHalbucks

Poor folk, single women, and welfare mothers want to be taken care of and coddled by government. Welfare and universal health care are their opiates.

Many people, especially blacks, have openly stated that they are primarily supporting Obama because they want to elect our first black President. Union workers who don't mind government corruption, as long as it favors them, they are all aboard. All the leftist ideologues, the socialists, and everyone obsessed with race, class, and gender --they are all backing Obama in droves.

So, what you have is this landslide of entitlement seekers.

Me, me, me, ME FIRST. Gimme, gimme, GIMME. I want it now, now, NOW.

The bottom line is: every scumbag on the planet is backing Obama. Every lousy corrupt union, every radical leftist group, every deadbeat who ever wanted to collect while doing nothing ---they are all on the bandwagon. The media has been in the bag for a while.

This is what is driving the Obama tsunami.

It's time to pray for America (and I am not even religious).

[mynameisjim]

Two biggest things are:

1) The economy. If this meltdown never happened the election would be dead even.

2) Palin. He always talks about "country first" and that was his strength, but picking Palin showed he was a fake. If he was truly "country first" he would acknowledge his age and have picked a VP who was ready to step in without any coaching. That's not Palin and America knows it. He totally destroyed all his strengths when he picked Palin.

If he picked a sensible VP and the market didn't tank, he would probably have been able to eek out a victory by a slim margin.

[kane]

I think he was all over the map then eventually he went dirty and the undecided voters responded poorly to them then when the economic crisis hit he fell apart and Obama put him on the ropes and hasn't let him off.

[tony286]

I think John Mccain made the same mistake Mitt made they tried to pander to the extreme right. That is their fault. Mccain before he sold his soul, was against the bush tax cuts thought it was dumb during a time of war and thought it favored the rich too much,was pro choice and thought these evangelical reverends were con men. Why do you think very liberal Joe Lieberman was his best buddy besides the war Joe is a big time liberal.

[Snake Doctor]

Originally Posted by DaddyHalbucks

Poor folk, single women, and welfare mothers want to be taken care of and coddled by government. Welfare and universal health care are their opiates.

Many people, especially blacks, have openly stated that they are primarily supporting Obama because they want to elect our first black President. Union workers who don't mind government corruption, as long as it favors them, they are all aboard. All the leftist ideologues, the socialists, and everyone obsessed with race, class, and gender --they are all backing Obama in droves.

So, what you have is this landslide of entitlement seekers.

Me, me, me, ME FIRST. Gimme, gimme, GIMME. I want it now, now, NOW.

The bottom line is: every scumbag on the planet is backing Obama. Every lousy corrupt union, every radical leftist group, every deadbeat who ever wanted to collect while doing nothing ---they are all on the bandwagon. The media has been in the bag for a while.

This is what is driving the Obama tsunami.

It's time to pray for America (and I am not even religious).

Rather than burn you in effigy as my colleagues are doing, I have a question for you.

If these scumbags and deadbeats as you call them are what is driving Obama to victory, then why have 3 of our last 4 Presidents been Republicans?

Were Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale, and Carter not liberal enough for these deadbeats to show up at the polls?

Sure Obama is going to clean up with the African American vote and turnout will be high....but Democrats usually get 90% of the black vote anyways....and I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that enough southern democrats and rust belt democrats will probably vote against Obama just because he's black, that it will at least blunt, if not wipe out completely the advantage Obama will get from increased black turnout.

So why didn't this "tsunami" of deadbeats also elect Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry? How did the republicans control congress from 1994-2006 if the majority of Americans are deadbeats looking for a handout?

[pocketkangaroo]

Originally Posted by Snake Doctor

Rather than burn you in effigy as my colleagues are doing, I have a question for you.

If these scumbags and deadbeats as you call them are what is driving Obama to victory, then why have 3 of our last 4 Presidents been Republicans?

Were Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale, and Carter not liberal enough for these deadbeats to show up at the polls?

Sure Obama is going to clean up with the African American vote and turnout will be high....but Democrats usually get 90% of the black vote anyways....and I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that enough southern democrats and rust belt democrats will probably vote against Obama just because he's black, that it will at least blunt, if not wipe out completely the advantage Obama will get from increased black turnout.

So why didn't this "tsunami" of deadbeats also elect Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry? How did the republicans control congress from 1994-2006 if the majority of Americans are deadbeats looking for a handout?

Like I said, he can only post a talking point from some website. He can't respond to anything and the reason he ducks in, makes a post, and runs for cover. Look at his history, he will never respond to a follow-up. He mentally can't.

[Snake Doctor]

Originally Posted by tony404

I think John Mccain made the same mistake Mitt made they tried to pander to the extreme right. That is their fault. Mccain before he sold his soul, was against the bush tax cuts thought it was dumb during a time of war and thought it favored the rich too much,was pro choice and thought these evangelical reverends were con men. Why do you think very liberal Joe Lieberman was his best buddy besides the war Joe is a big time liberal.

I agree with this to an extent.

I was thinking about it this morning when Rudy Giuliani was on Morning Joe talking about tax policy.
He makes the supply side tax argument 10 times better than McCain does.....because Rudy actually believes it. (It's bullshit mind you, but it's bullshit he believes in)

If Romney hadn't flip flopped on abortion and other things like that, but had just run as a moderate pro business republican in the mold of Rockefeller, he'd have done alot better....and if he lost this time he'd be in great position next time around.

Same thing with McCain cozying up to the likes of Falwell, Hagee, and Parsley...and then embracing the Bush tax cuts that he voted against.

One of the things voters liked about GW Bush, when they voted for him, was that he was authentic. You may not have agreed with him on alot of things, but you got the sense that he truly believed what he was saying and would follow through with it.
One thing people don't like is a political phony who just says what he thinks you want to hear, which is what McCain did to win the nomination.

[pigman]

Simple a stiff McCain lost all debates, say weird things under speeches like Bush, Palin, the whole anti-obama campaign. All that shit killed McCain.

But also Obama is just great.

[Corleone]

sarah palin?!?!

[Marcus Aurelius]

Palin...

[qxm]

Body language killed him....

[uno]

It's incredibly simple. The week or so when he was saying that the fundementals of the economy were strong are the exact moments he lost this election.

[Vendot]

OK.... I can sum it up in five (as a UK dude give a rough appraisal according to what ive seen):

(1) The poor economy.

(2) His campaign (which rather than talking about himself, is attacking obama and looking cheap and small compared to Obama).

(3) His choice of Palin which paints him as someone with poor judgement.

(4) His allignment with bush policies which people are repelled by.

(5) He's up against an eloquent, charismatic leader ie Obama, which contrasts strongly with him.

[clare-sizegenetics]

lol those pics are so funny.. but the sad thing is... people will still vote for chipmunk man :-(

[GatorB]

Originally Posted by mynameisjim

Two biggest things are:

1) The economy. If this meltdown never happened the election would be dead even.

2) Palin. He always talks about "country first" and that was his strength, but picking Palin showed he was a fake. If he was truly "country first" he would acknowledge his age and have picked a VP who was ready to step in without any coaching. That's not Palin and America knows it. He totally destroyed all his strengths when he picked Palin.

If he picked a sensible VP and the market didn't tank, he would probably have been able to eek out a victory by a slim margin.

Originally Posted by kane

I think he was all over the map then eventually he went dirty and the undecided voters responded poorly to them then when the economic crisis hit he fell apart and Obama put him on the ropes and hasn't let him off.

Going dirty is especially bad when you PRMOISE not to do it. Combine that with the quoted material above you and America saw how insincere and fake he was.

Besides all McCain can say is "Vote for me I'm less sucky than the other guy" That's not a real strong message. If McCain was really the better guy then he could tell me what HE is going to do not keep telling me about what the other guy is going to do. Every strong candidate has a message I may not always agree with that mesage but they have one. McCain is all over the place. He has no direction. Is that how he is going to governen?

[Tam]

McCain is his own worst enemy, it's like he setout just to see how bad he could fuck things up for himself. The ultimate responsibility for every move he has made is his own unraveling and his own responsibility.

Like I tell my kids, OTHERS cannot get you into trouble, you make the decisions you make and the ultimate responsibility is your own.