Did McCain had a chance or was he doomed

[UnselfconsciousTeff]

That really wonderd me i know the GOP lost because the crisis but even... for me McCain was a great candidate but at the wrong time because i do think that McCain would be steamrolled by Obama without the crisis

[538Electoral]

He was leading Obama as late as September right before the stock markets crashed. I'd say without the crisis and a better pick at a running mate, McCain likely would've won but that's just me.

[Bourbonfan]

I was young, but I did not think at any point during 2008 that McCain had a shot. Even before the crash, Bush and the Republican brand were damaged by the wars and Katrina. I think the latter gets forgotten a little now, but it seemed at the time that everyone felt that had been botched horrifically and Bush was blamed in part for that. Throw in trying for a third term, and I just think he was in fact doomed.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Honestly, Obamas NPV lead would have been more than twice as much as it actually was in 2008 if he was facing against anyone in the 2008 Republican primary field other than McCain, and he especially would have done better in Appalachian and Ozarks areas where he in reality strongly underperformed Kerry from 2004 than he actually did. There were people who disapproved of Bush in the Republican Party, and these people were critical in delivering the nomination to McCain in 2008. They thought he was someone who would bring positive change from the direction of the Country under Bush Jr, and that he had the experience to do so as well. There were also some Democrats who found him similarly appealing as a result of Clinton having campaign on experience in the primary who believed that McCain was a good choice because they thought he had both experience and the desire to bring change. The fact that McCain still lost badly despite the fact that all of his strengths were as perfect as could be counters to Obamas weaknesses in 2008 really says a lot about how bad 2008 was for Republicans at the fundamentals.

Map of Obama vs someone other than McCain

He likely knocks out the Never Democratic streaks in Lee and Ogle Counties, Illinois, and does not have the Never Republican streaks in Knott and Floyd Counties, Kentucky or in Stewart County, Tennessee knocked out in 2008 in such a case as well.
Riley County, Kansas would have hung on as Republican by less than 1%.

[brucejoel99]

I don't think it was impossible for McCain to win in 2008. What I do think is that it'd take making the situation that year different (either a much better economy or, at the very least, the markets not crashing until after the election) & him not choosing Palin as his running mate. Keep in mind that picking her was a deliberate underdog move to shake the political situation up (& remember that even McCain's preferred method of doing this would've been to choose Lieberman; it's just that there would've been too much of a backlash at the convention). If McCain was the favorite or if it was much closer, then he'd probably go with a safer, more conventional choice, & if all this had been the case, then McCain might've been able to win (even if only in a squeaker).

Given the hand he'd been dealt, though, no. From 1840 on, there isn't a single case of the party controlling the White House winning the popular vote for the presidency in a fairly serious recession year, & only one instance (1876) of it winning the electoral vote in such a year (& even that was under dubious circumstances). Even if McCain's stupid play of "I'm going to go to Washington & save America" had secured anything close to a quick "rescue package" that Congress could approve & McCain could try to take credit for bringing about (& even if canceling the debate didn't make it sound like he was scared to debate Obama), everybody could see that the economy would continue to deteriorate, & the voters would blame it on the GOP.

(Not to mention, it would've been even harder for McCain to win the electoral vote than the popular vote. Obama won the popular vote by 7.27%. This in & of itself would've been hard to overcome, but let's say that McCain had somehow managed to do so & win the popular vote by, say, 1.5%. Assuming that this 8.77% swing is equally distributed among the states, this would give McCain North Carolina, Indiana, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, & NE-02. But guess what? Obama would still win with 278 electoral votes. In order to even get to a tie in the Electoral College, McCain would've had to have won at least 1 state which he lost to Obama by 8.95% or more.)

[One Term Floridian]

Honestly, Obamas NPV lead would have been more than twice as much as it actually was in 2008 if he was facing against anyone in the 2008 Republican primary field other than McCain, and he especially would have done better in Appalachian and Ozarks areas where he in reality strongly underperformed Kerry from 2004 than he actually did. There were people who disapproved of Bush in the Republican Party, and these people were critical in delivering the nomination to McCain in 2008. They thought he was someone who would bring positive change from the direction of the Country under Bush Jr, and that he had the experience to do so as well. There were also some Democrats who found him similarly appealing as a result of Clinton having campaign on experience in the primary who believed that McCain was a good choice because they thought he had both experience and the desire to bring change. The fact that McCain still lost badly despite the fact that all of his strengths were as perfect as could be counters to Obamas weaknesses in 2008 really says a lot about how bad 2008 was for Republicans at the fundamentals.

Map of Obama vs someone other than McCain

He likely knocks out the Never Democratic streaks in Lee and Ogle Counties, Illinois, and does not have the Never Republican streaks in Knott and Floyd Counties, Kentucky or in Stewart County, Tennessee knocked out in 2008 in such a case as well.
Riley County, Kansas would have hung on as Republican by less than 1%.

Agree with quite a bit here, but Obama was never carrying WV. Period.

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

It's hard to believe that McCain could've won without the financial crisis because Bush's approvals were bad even before that happened. I think it would take no recession plus Bush getting bin Laden for even a narrow win.

[Annatar]

Bush was at 30% approve 65% disapprove in June, July, August of 2008, there is no chance McCain or any candidate could have won when the incumbent president of their party was at -35. People forget now how hated Bush was, he spent much of the last year of his presidency at 30% or less, even dipping to as low at 24%. On election day 2008 if you look at the exit polls Bush was at 27% approval, 72% disapproval.

This by the way is also why all the talk about how Trump is damaging the GOP is nonsense, Bush was at 20 - 30% approval at the end of his presidency and there were thousands of articles written about how Bush had doomed the GOP, we all know what happened later, Trump on the other hand has never even gone below 35% and is around 44 - 45%, twice as popular as Bush was at his nadir and we still see nonsense articles about how Trump is damaging the GOP forever.

[morgankingsley]

He might have won it, but he almost certainly would have lost the popular vote

[Pericles]

He might have won it, but he almost certainly would have lost the popular vote

The tipping-point state in terms of Obama getting 270 plus electoral votes was Colorado, which actually voted 1.69% to the left of the nation. However if McCain won Colorado and every electoral vote he lost by smaller margins it still would have only been a 269-269 tie (so Obama would probably have still won), and the next closest state, Iowa, voted 2.28% to the left of the nation. So Obama's Electoral College advantage in 2008 was almost as big as Trump's (2.28% advantage to a 2.85% advantage for Trump), and so McCain actually needed to make up a margin of 9.54% to win the presidency. Given the fundamentals in 2008 and also that Obama was a strong candidate (I struggle to see even a McCain popular vote win), it's very hard to see McCain actually winning though he could have lost by less and that would have had some impacts going forward.

[morgankingsley]

He might have won it, but he almost certainly would have lost the popular vote

The tipping-point state in terms of Obama getting 270 plus electoral votes was Colorado, which actually voted 1.69% to the left of the nation. However if McCain won Colorado and every electoral vote he lost by smaller margins it still would have only been a 269-269 tie (so Obama would probably have still won), and the next closest state, Iowa, voted 2.28% to the left of the nation. So Obama's Electoral College advantage in 2008 was almost as big as Trump's (2.28% advantage to a 2.85% advantage for Trump), and so McCain actually needed to make up a margin of 9.54% to win the presidency. Given the fundamentals in 2008 and also that Obama was a strong candidate (I struggle to see even a McCain popular vote win), it's very hard to see McCain actually winning though he could have lost by less and that would have had some impacts going forward.

I think McCain could have maybe closed it in to where he lost all states lost by less than 5, but that is about it

[Podgy the Bear]

Really, McCain didn't have a chance.  Except for the 7 day window following the Republican convention and the Sarah Palin selection, he was consistently behind in the PV.   

And more significant, Obama (thanks to the Davids--Plouffe and Axelrod) had an effective campaign strategy: consolidating the Kerry 2004 states, focusing on OH/FL/NV/CO, going after the reach states of VA/NC/IN/MO, and even pursuing states like ND/MT/AK (which was in play until the selection of Palin).   It worked, and by the second debate, it was largely over.

[Mechavada]

Are you kidding?  He was doomed.  Here's why:

1. For the reason a lot of people say he would have been a good contender: he alienated a lot of the GOP base.  Hell, his first big idea was to nominate JOE LIEBERMAN for the VP spot.  Even with a big scary "radical Marxist Leninist Muslamic Atheist" (ie a black man) on the Democratic ticket base turnout out would have been massively depressed.  By this point while you did have a lot of stubborn war hawks there were many people even in the GOP who were turning mad hard against the Iraq War.  You also had McCain's massive disagreements with the base on issues like gun control and immigration, the latter of which he made a point of being very public about.  Anyone who was awake at all during the 2016 election season should know why this wouldn't help him at all and why many Republicans sat out 2008 while Democratic turnout was THROUGH THE ROOF.

2. Going back to the point about the War in Iraq.  Yeah, most candidates outside of Ron Paul on the GOP side were pretty pro-war but let's take away for a moment the media love of John Sidney McCain for just a second and remember that this guy was the Warhawk of all Warhawks.  In a year when everybody and their grandmother was yelling from the rooftops to pulls us out of Iraq what does McCain do?  He starts joke singing about "Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran".  Maybe in an alternate reality where the War in Iraq is a smashing success in mid 2008 and everyone likes it he would have a shot at parlaying this expansionist mentality but IRL most everyone who wasn't a bitter Republican partisan disapproved of it.

3. People say McCain had a "lead" in the polls.  At best it was a couple of points and it was for like five minutes.  Those kind of random poll results happen more often than you think even in elections where one side is definitely favored to win over the other.  If there are literally hundreds of polls released in an election year with increases and decreases as candidates make statements/gaffes and immediate responses are recorded of course there's going to be an anomaly that over represents a candidates chances.

4. Even if the markets didn't crash in September 2008 the economy still was far from friendly for Republicans.  The economy had been going down for awhile before that and gas prices were sky high.  At one point I was paying $4.50 a gallon and that was in Oklahoma!  Imagine how high it got in Santa Monica or LA or wherever.  Add this on top of the issues with the war in Iraq and Bush's nuclear approval ratings then yeah no Republican would have a shot in 2008.


Now, I wouldn't debate the idea that McCain was a better candidate than the holy rollers and insert wall street talking point here candidates that he ran against in 2008.  However, the man has always been a very overrated politician largely due to his relationship with the media.  A relationship he cultivated after he ratted out his fellow con artists in the Keating Five scandal because he was so desperate to be a "Great Man" of society.  That doesn't mean he's completely politically inept, after all if he was he wouldn't have armchair news watchers on random forums swearing to the high heavens he was the "perfect Republican" presidential nominee.  Of course there's a reason the media does this, and that reason is WAR.  The media loves it, can't get enough of it, and that's the one thing that Bomber McCain always promised them.  The man hated gay marriage, was totally committed against expanded abortion access, and even opposed the creation of MLK day but you would never know these things because of how much a compliant and syncopathic media went out of it's way to cover these things up by gushing at how good McCain looked in 196whenever in his Navy Blue overalls and how manly he looked when he criticized Religious Right extremists who get disturbed by females in shorts.  But the media and establishment shitlords who want to criticize tax cuts but benefit from them, who want to criticize oil exploitation at the cost of the environment but support foreign policies that expand the pocketbooks of BP and Exon Mobil, who want to cry loudly about how the system favors white men but then promote candidates who are proud wannabe cop lawyers who have an extensive record of supporting policies that imprisoned thousands of minority men and women, have seemed to largely been successful in convincing millions of people that John Bomber McCain was a decent moderate Republican man who would have been good for this country and had the widespread support of everyone despite being everything that tens of millions of Americans hate about the political establishment.

So yeah, this was a bit of a rant.  I'm sorry if I offended anyone's feelings but John McCain was the Audacity of Hype.  You put him in any election besides maybe 2000 (when his image had recovered from the Keating scandal and his FP was popular) he would have been a gigantic epic fail.  That is all.

[sg0508]

yes before Lehman (late September) and none thereafter.

[sg0508]

yes before Lehman (late September) and none thereafter.

[Pandaguineapig]

Probably not, but he wasn't helped by his campaign staff, people like Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace stabbed him in the back repeatedly down the stretch to help them obtain jobs at MSNBC

[Gracile]

Even putting aside the economic crash, he really had no way of overcoming Bush's unpopularity and Obama's juggernaut campaign.

[darklordoftech]

McCain winning in 2008 was as likely as Cox winning in 1920.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

He would have won if the economy was doing well. Instead, it was in total free fall.

[Pericles]

He would have won if the economy was doing well. Instead, it was in total free fall.

It probably would have been a narrow loss in that case, Bush was still very unpopular and Iraq in particular was a big liability for Republicans, and Obama was a great candidate. If anything McCain was lucky to not lose by even more.

[McGarnagle]

McCain would definitely have had a chance in 2000 if Bush hadn't run

He was doomed in 2008 because Obama was a brilliant campaigner who ran a very effective campaign that was practically unstoppable that year. Picking Palin as his running mate obviously didn't help things either - she amplified the toxic far-right "populism" that McCain came to detest when it took over his party eight years later.

McCain might have won (just barely) against Clinton if Obama hadn't run - but he'd have to have picked a better running mate, and the economy would have to not crash so close to the election.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

He would have won if the economy was doing well. Instead, it was in total free fall.

It probably would have been a narrow loss in that case, Bush was still very unpopular and Iraq in particular was a big liability for Republicans, and Obama was a great candidate. If anything McCain was lucky to not lose by even more.

In the second week of September 2008, the economy was certainly not doing well, and yet McCain was leading in the polls early in the week. Then sh**t hit the fan hard with the Lehman Brothers that Friday and Monday and Obama led for the rest of the election.

[Pericles]

He would have won if the economy was doing well. Instead, it was in total free fall.

It probably would have been a narrow loss in that case, Bush was still very unpopular and Iraq in particular was a big liability for Republicans, and Obama was a great candidate. If anything McCain was lucky to not lose by even more.

In the second week of September 2008, the economy was certainly not doing well, and yet McCain was leading in the polls early in the week. Then sh**t hit the fan hard with the Lehman Brothers that Friday and Monday and Obama led for the rest of the election.

That seems to have just been a convention bounce, and as I pointed out it is even harder for McCain to win than the national popular vote suggests as Obama had a significant advantage in the Electoral College. The fundamentals of the election were very bad for McCain.

[uti2]

He would have won if the economy was doing well. Instead, it was in total free fall.

It probably would have been a narrow loss in that case, Bush was still very unpopular and Iraq in particular was a big liability for Republicans, and Obama was a great candidate. If anything McCain was lucky to not lose by even more.

In the second week of September 2008, the economy was certainly not doing well, and yet McCain was leading in the polls early in the week. Then sh**t hit the fan hard with the Lehman Brothers that Friday and Monday and Obama led for the rest of the election.

That seems to have just been a convention bounce, and as I pointed out it is even harder for McCain to win than the national popular vote suggests as Obama had a significant advantage in the Electoral College. The fundamentals of the election were very bad for McCain.

You're forgetting that Obama had a post-nom bounce himself. In the primaries he consistently underpolled Hillary vs. McCain in the GE matchups.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/05/clintons-closing-argument-to-superdelegates/53314/

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

He would have won if the economy was doing well. Instead, it was in total free fall.

It probably would have been a narrow loss in that case, Bush was still very unpopular and Iraq in particular was a big liability for Republicans, and Obama was a great candidate. If anything McCain was lucky to not lose by even more.

In the second week of September 2008, the economy was certainly not doing well, and yet McCain was leading in the polls early in the week. Then sh**t hit the fan hard with the Lehman Brothers that Friday and Monday and Obama led for the rest of the election.

That seems to have just been a convention bounce, and as I pointed out it is even harder for McCain to win than the national popular vote suggests as Obama had a significant advantage in the Electoral College. The fundamentals of the election were very bad for McCain.

I'm not saying that Obama wouldn't have won if the economy had imploded. But had it actually been a good economy, I don't think he would have won. In early September, the stock market was still down around 15% in the last year.