Talk Elections

So both of these guys lost to Obama, but was there any difference between the two on policy?
Or were they basically the same fiscal conservatives with only different names?
Had Romney been the nominee in 08 would he have beat Obama?
McCain in 12?

Mccain was more hawkish on foreign policy. But neither would have beaten Obama either time.

Yes.

Yes, Mitt Romney is a much more principled leader and respectable human being. 

McCain was probably more hawkish and to Romney’s left on domestic policy.

Though it may not seem like it, Republicans were definitely correct to run McCain in '08 and Romney in '12 rather than the reverse.

I still think McCain is more conservative than Romney....it's just that Romney ran a more conservative presidential campaign.

Had Romney been the nominee in 08 would he have beat Obama?

^

No Republican was winning in 2008, no matter what. But I think Romney would've lost by a smaller margin in 2008. I don't think he drops Indiana, nor do I think he would finish a virtual tie in Missouri.

One problem with McCain is that he was more of a foreign-policy whiz, running at a time when the economic collapse was the biggest problem. And Democrats were able to link McCain with George W. Bush, pointing out the way he campaigned for Bush and voted with the President over 90% of the time. Romney wouldn't have had these problems.

Good points, but it would've been easier to tie Romney to Wall Street crooks after the financial crisis. Also McCain had a lot of good will with the electorate that Romney just didn't have.

I guess both of them have their own difference. We just need to be open with ihe idea that the differences are what  makes them unique

McCain was more old fashioned. More hawkish on foreign policy, and he made unity his main campaign theme. Resonated with older voters more.

Romney was a much more modern candidate and ran a very modern campaign, which resonated better with younger voters. He campaigned on pragmatic foreign and social policy and focused on economic revival.

McCain was principled whereas Romney didn't even show a lick of principle until getting elected to the Senate and that might be too kind to Romney.

McCain was pro-immigration reform, Romney was so ha%^@$$d the other way that even Trump thought it was too far.

Glad someone mentioned this.

Romney defined his path to the national spotlight on the back of the immigration issue. He ran as the suburban conservative, who was against amnesty for illegals. This positioned him to the right of McCain, Rudy and Fred Thompson, but left him exposed with rural populists, which is how Huckabee came into the mix.

If you look at the maps in close primary states like GA for instance and Missouri, The suburbs were often Romney versus McCain, while the rural areas were McCain versus Huckabee. At the time, immigration hawks were centered mostly in suburbs in places like Socal, Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, Charlotte etc. These areas have mostly flipped now and the rise in racial tensions with migrant labor in more rural counties, has created new bases for this like Luzerne and Berks County, PA. Romney was the last gasp for crime conscious suburbanites and his approach to the immigration issue was primarily a law and order one and less economic, whereas Trump's approach was more economically populist in its immigration arguments.

Tim Alberta's book does a great job of describing the Romney-McCain dynamic from 2008 to 2012. Basically McCain upset a lot of the activist base by being too soft on immigration (and people attributed some of his margins in 2008 to this). Romney saw this and hardened his stances from 2008 to move to the right of the rest of the field on the issue. This is part of why he was forgiven by the base for Romneycare.

I'm not sure if you're saying Huck was to the right of Romney on Immigration, but from what I noticed when listening to Double Down, it appears that Romney was prepared to attack both Perry and Huckabee on the in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, and I believe he used that attack with Perry in his disaster of a campaign. 

What’s “Double Down”?

It's a book covering the election, sorry for not making that clearer.

Huckabee was weaker on immigration and Romney supporters attacked him on the matter in 2008, but as I said in the post, many rural areas weren't focusing on immigration as a higher priority yet. They cared more about Romney's image as "the guy who comes to lay you off" and his flip flops on guns and abortion and thus Huckabee had a great advantage over the rural areas on those issues. Likewise, McCain's military background and foreign policy views made him competitive in many rural areas as well.