McCains Ineffective Campaign

[ronpaul2008]

McCain has run a poor campaign because he has a poor platform. What is his real difference from Obama? He can't very well criticize Obama for his socialist health care plans when he is offering a government health care solution himself. McCain says Obama will raise our taxes but Obama says he won't raise taxes for people making under 250k a year. Most people make under 250k so are not worried at all about these higher taxes. McCain is correct that businesses will move overseas if Obama taxes them more, but Obama counters with promises of tax breaks for corporations who create jobs here which limits peoples worries about corporations being taxed too much under Obama. It is a shame Ron Paul or Mike Huckabee was not the candidate shaking the tax issue up talking about a repeal of the income tax and a move to a flat tax. Now I hear McCains advisors are sheltering Palin against her own wishes. The media is trashing Palin and she could be out there taking the critics on being a huge asset. McCains team is blowing it. Do they actually think robo calls are going to help them win an election? Right now we need a leader who is fluent in financial matters, Ron Paul would easily have defeated Obama. He would have sold the American people on liberty. If we were allowed to keep what we earn the economy would be rolling again in no time.

 

[oreo]

Well let's face it. Really no one was enthusiastic about John McCain until he picked Sarah Palin as his VP. Republicans all across this country were dismayed & shocked when he actually won the nomination. To me, John McCain is more democrat than he is republican. His views on many issues are left of center. Closing GITMO, (the prison paradise) to no drilling in ANWAR etc. realling wrinkled some republican opinions.

As far as his campaign. One person asked me if Sarah Palin hurt his campaign. I had to laugh at that, & replied no it's John McCain that has hurt Sarah Palin. She is the female version of Ronald Reagan, & she may turn out to be the first female President of the United States.

The majority of Americans are middle of the road & tend to lean a little to the right. It appears that the Republican party has forgotten that.

 

[DavidS]

I don't think it's John McCain's fault. I think the Republican Party, the people who are running the party are so out of touch on the issues most important to America that it's shameful to have even let a Republican of the honor and integrity that the man John McCain is to have gone out there in front of millions of people and run his campaign this way.

Obama's great and all, but David Axelrod deserve's the cover to this year's Time Magazine Man of the Year.

John McCain's campaign in 2008 is completely identical to George W. Bush's campaign of 2004, 2000, Bob Dole's in 1996, HW Bush's in 1992 and 1988 and Reagan's in 1984 and 1980. You cannot make the central focus of your campaign cutting taxes by 0.5% for people who pay less than $10,000 a year in taxes and all of a sudden everyone's rich. The Republican Party cannot run on social issues when the majority of Americans are center-left on social issues. The Republican party cannot run on limited government and lower spending when every single Republican for the past 60 years has increased the size of the government and over-spent.

Thus the current message, the current brand of the Republican Party is 30 years outdated and Americans have grown tired of it.

The Republican Party in 2012 should run a center left campaign and force the Democratic party to turn further to the left to distinguish itself from the Republicans. That is the only way the Republicans can ever hope to win in the next 1000 years.

Roe V. Wade will never be overturned. In order to do so, you would need 2/3 of the United States to ratify a new constitutional amendment and with so many more important issues facing Americans today, it won't pass. What should pass is a bill requiring every single aborted fetus to be used for stem cell research. One life can be used to save dozens of other lives. Otherwise the contents that were removed from the mother will be discarded along with yesterday's trash.

 

[USJD]

I used to have a lot of respect about John McCain until I learned more about him and what he has really stood for since day one. John McCain is a pure opportunist and people saw that with his campaign "suspension." While I am like most and didn't like the bailout I knew that it was necessary, but how did they get it to pass? They loaded a bunch of "pork" on to it and it passed. John McCain had made a big deal about how he was against "pork" but then voted for it in the middle of a campaign for a bill with nothing but Pork. What the bailout should have been is the topic of another thread however.

John McCain's campaign died in the middle of the 2007 Summer and how did he come back from the dead because he took the advice to be just John McCain the maverick of 2000 and it worked. Then Barack Obama kept hitting on the theme that John McCain was like giving Bush a third term and it killed him so he brought in campaign staff from the Karl Rove School of Politics and people saw the old GOP of 2000 and 2004.

The campaign shifted its message several times and no message ever stuck. His campaign staff if they had any sense could have seen the "tea leaves" on the wall, why would Obama take federal funds when he had already raised what the government would have given him and had the restrictions to comply with.

Then the right wing enthusiasm for McCain's campaign was flat until he took Sarah Palin as his VP. John McCain should have either chosen someone else for his VP or kept his choice under wraps while a secret team of people went to Alaska to train Palin on national issues, he didn't. Palin, brought him a temporary boost but as America got to know Sarah Palin they saw the danger signs and she has now become a liability. The campaign was about getting McCain elected at all cost and the endless political tricks wore thin and here we are.

Obama's campaign is a very focused disciplined operation and they stay on message minus a blip from Joe Biden every now and then. I personally think Obama should have approached Hillary Clinton and if he had it would be blow out by now anyways that part of the campaign is history. Simply put, Obama left the primaries with a great organization merged Hillary's into it and combined with the money advantage and message focus will probably walk away with the Presidency.

I feel for John McCain in a way. I respect his service and his dedication but the GOP really needs to change its ways and maybe a four year time out will help them re-invent themselves as the Democrats did after 2004. In the end, the GOP message is flawed and it needs to change.