Could the Republicans have won in 2008?

[DS0816]

Was John McCain the best candidates that 2008 Republicans could have nominated? Was 2008 truly winnable for Republicans or was it a lost cause for them and an assured win for Democrats?

No.

The incumbent United States president, George W. Bush, had a job-approval percentage rating that was as welcoming as a sexual disease which infected a huge percentage of the nation.

If LibertarianRepublican, who started this thread, needs clarification, I would suggest he/she do some research which informs him/her as to what was happening seven years ago. It's such a long time ago that it might as well be seven decades ago.


Speaking of a long time ago…


This answer also applies to any forum member wanting to start a thread which asks, "Could the Republicans have won in 1932?"

[DS0816]

sg0508,

The economic meltdown in September 2008 solidified John McCain losing a Republican hold of the presidency…totally letting even non-analysts know, at that time, the result would be a Democratic pickup to elect Barack Obama the 44th president of the United States.

Wikipedia.org probably has the polls' numbers, nationwide and statewide, for the McCain-vs.-Obama matchup on a timeline.

My memory was that McCain's questionable leads were in part of August and right after the end of the 2008 Republican convention. (The Democratic convention was in the final week of August 2008. The Republican convention was one week later.) The Republican convention's end was between one and two weeks before the meltdown.

By the way: Some of the polls were b.s. This was especially the case with Rasmussen Reports, which didn't show an Obama lead in Ohio until the arrival of October. All other polls were showing the opposite. Rasmussen, clearly untrustworthy, was doing it deliberately. (It actually had the nerve to publish a poll showing McCain with a 10-point lead given George W. Bush's 2004 margin in Ohio was 2.11 to his 2.46 nationwide.)

The reasons why the 2008 incumbent White House party [the Republican Party] couldn't survive their efforts to hold the White House came in the form of George W. Bush. His low-approval numbers were the worst for an incumbent, in a non-incumbent presidential election year, since Harry Truman back in 1952. And that year, just like 2008, resulted in party-flipping of the presidency.

[DS0816]

Polling data through the primary process showed McCain as the strongest candidate against any Democrat, and the only one with a chance to beat the Democrats.  This polling data was consistent.

Let's not forget that McCain's image in 2008 was more moderate than it is now.  McCain was the sponsor of McCain-Feingold, and a man friendly toward John Kerry in 2004.  He wasn't the Grumpy Old Man who's a negative partisan then.  He had been the most critical of W over time, and this helped him versus the Democrats.

Any other Republican may well have handed Obama a Dukakis-like defeat.  Romney would have been blamed as just another business hack.  In addition it wasn't just the "Republican Brand" that took a hit; the "Conservative Brand" took a hit as well.  Republicanism and Conservatism were linked and blamed for the wars and financial turmoil, while individual Americans were becoming more socially liberal and less religious.  If there was a candidate who MAY have done better than John McCain in the GE, it MIGHT have been Rudy Giuliani, but even he didn't poll as well against the Democrats as McCain did.

George W. Hush brought down his Republican Party and helped deliver the nation’s first black president of the United States. A Democratic Party wave including eight Republican-held United States Senate seats also flipped Democratic.

There was no reason, in 2008, to believe the Republicans would hold the White House. Seven years later, with no reason for there to be any confusion, it is laughable for anyone to look back at that year and still believe the Republicans could have won.