The Seven Sins That Afflicted John McCain: Why He Lost

On November 4th, 2008, Americans went to the polls to choose the 44th President of the United States. They did so with a convincing declaration that they were unhappy with the status quo in Washington, D. C. and wanted change – dramatic change! They rejected experienced John McCain with passion and in convincing numbers, and selected an untested Barack Obama.

John McCain and the Republicans lost this election in an astounding defeat even in times like these - perhaps one of the worst showings by Republicans in modern American history. McCain´s downfall also contributed to the disastrous loss of the House and Senate to a near filibuster-proof Democratic majority which will have ramifications for years to come. There were seven main causes of this, the seven sins that afflicted John McCain:

First and foremost was the ´Bush Factor´. George Bush ends his Presidency with one of the lowest approval ratings in history. Though not all his fault, GW failed to sustain the confidence of the American people for perhaps five of his eight years in office. Except immediately following his response to 9/11 - his attack on the Taliban /Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan - the 43rd President began to steadily lose his popular support with Americans owing to several significant blunders.

Principally was attacking Iraq before Afghanistan was under control and the subsequent revelations of the flaws in his reasoning for doing so. There were no weapons of mass destruction to be found. We were not welcomed with flowers and cheering crowds in the streets. It was not a quick in-and-out victory as predicted. Instead what was to have been a short war of liberation has become an expensive, lingering war of attrition wearing on the patience of the American public.

It is beyond debate that the world is a better place without the Hussein´s in it; however, the timing could not have been worse for McCain. The American people, a fast food society, have become disinterested and have distanced themselves from the noble cause of war fighting. They want to end it and to get on with their lives however it can be ended, quickly. Obama promised to do so while McCain equivocated - once even impertinently suggesting, not seriously I suspect, that we could be there for a hundred years.

Another major distracter was the Bush economic policies – or lack thereof. Economic collapse, precipitated late in the campaign, could not have come at a more inopportune time for McCain. The good times went south while McCain made astonishing gaffs in response once stating that the American economy was fundamentally sound just days before reversing himself as the stock market plunged and major financial institutions failed. He could never quite decide on a solution to the dilemma, too late introducing ubiquitous proposals one day and new ones the next. He seemed to flounder, to not have a grasp of what was needed to resolve the problems and set a course to correct the situation. George Will, an avowed conservative columnist and erudite analyzer of politics, pointedly criticized McCain´s inept approach to our economic predicament: "Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama."

However much he disavowed it, McCain was tagged as a Bush loyalist by the Democrats and could never quite disassociate himself. Obama often referred to McCain´s election as a third George Bush term, an argument to which the voters could – and did – relate.

The second reason John McCain bombed the election was his own intense manner and irascible personality. He appeared ´the grouchy old man´ to many Americans tired of partisan bickering in our nation´s capital. He was unpersuasive in his promise to reach across party lines to end it. He was overly combative in the debates and on the campaign trail at times using nefarious and scurrilous tactics although initially promising not to run on negatives. Voters tired of the nastiness. "That one!", realistically or not, offered a calming alternative while at times suggesting - quite effectively - that McCain was unstable; voters went for it.

Third, and perhaps the most analyzed of the reasons for his defeat, was McCain´s disorganized, disarrayed approach to campaigning. McCain flubbed and flopped around the campaign trail with unpersuasive, ill-timed, and at times disjointed approaches to our current problems as voters viewed them. David Brooks, esteemed New York Times columnist, referred to this as McCain failing to establish a central argument and framework for his being the better choice for President. His economic plans and domestic policy initiatives were not timely, thoroughly thought out, nor substantial in depth and breadth whereas Obama seemed to offer levelheaded, credible solutions to our everyday problems here at home.

McCain insisted on a foreign affairs approach with war and trepidation as his standby. It failed as Americans most wanted to be calmed, reassured, soothed, and not frightened and fraught with the burden of war and international hostility as inevitable. In this approach, McCain´s priorities failed to mesh with those of the average American.

His campaign never really got off the ground in a sustained effort to win over enough independent voters from Obama; some called it muddled, ladened by indecision, crippled by a lack of direction. While he certainly lacked the substantial financial backing amassed by Barack Obama which somewhat limited his outreach, his appearance of not being in control of his own destiny, nor ours, was the primary fault of his campaign failure.

Fourth, John McCain astounded and confused nearly everyone with his pick of Sarah Palin, an unknown and dubiously qualified running mate. Unless McCain himself someday reveals his reasoning for doing so, we may never know why she was his choice. Certainly, if his intent was to capture disaffected Hillary Clinton women supporters, there were many other Republican female alternatives infinitely more competent and better known whose selection would have made far more sense. The stubbornness and unpredictable nature of John McCain once again surfaced to the chagrin of top party leaders who were flabbergasted over his decision. It was a foolhardy gesture at best and may have been paramount in costing him the election. George Will suggested she might have been a more serious burden than George Bush. Voters, probably correctly, could not accept her as being a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

Fifth on the list is what I refer to as the ´let´s make history´ aspect of this election where it was noted so many times in so many venues that we had never elected a black person to our highest office in our more than two hundred years of history, nor a woman. Some press pundits even went so far as to disdainfully point out that the Presidency has always been the domain of ´old white men´, a disconcerting assessment of our past Presidents as having somehow cornered the market on the office using nefarious tactics. Let´s not forget that such ´old white men´ as Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and Ronald Reagan did a pretty damned good job of ´Presidenting´ in good times and bad. But, there were a considerable number of voters convinced that their vote should go to Barack Obama to correct past perceived injustices, right or wrong - the aptly named ´guilt voter´ pulling the lever for history rather than qualifications. How many? Perhaps enough to make the difference.

The next-to-last sin of John McCain was his age. Not that he could control it; he is the age he is, 72. But he should have known - and probably did - that this would be a major consideration in the election. Unfortunately, we are a youth-oriented society - we place overdue emphasis on it. An unselfish McCain could and should have considered his age as a distracter in running for office. He knew, or should have known or been advised, that this was not his time. His time had passed in 2000 when he lost to George Bush; it was not now when he was running in a completely different era, under completely different circumstances, against a completely different opponent.

The unselfish act would have been to leave the political battlefield to others more in tune with the times, more acceptable to the electorate, a younger candidate, and a candidate less connected to George Bush. He muddied the playing field and helped ruin Republican chances by choosing to run. He is an ´old man´ and came across as such in the general election - as compared to the youth and exuberance of Obama. His candidacy represented the past, the failed policies of the inner circle in Washington, the establishment; Obama represented change, a fresh start, a renewal of hope in government at the highest level always reminding us that real change could only be accomplished from the bottom up, not by electing the same old faces. His argument trumped McCain´s of experience as the solution.

Seventh on the sins list - though certainly not the least - was the left-leaning press bias so apparent in this election cycle. (While there were many right wing press representatives as culpable, inarguably the preponderance of today´s media persons are liberal minded as revealed in surveys of their voting patterns and studies of their reporting tendencies.) Their obvious disdain for anyone or anything Republican was evident from day one of the campaigning as, at first, they unabashedly ordained Hillary Clinton as the nearly unstoppable candidate only later joining up with Obama, as her star faded, in brazen support of his election.

The mainstream press overwhelmingly lacked objectivity in assessing the two candidates and – at times so gleefully and so unprofessionally that it was distracting – developed a love-fest relationship with Obama. Such overtly liberal commentators´ frequent on-air and written statements as "we will make history in this election" were common in print and television news reporting - ´code words´ for their support of the first black Presidential nominee.

Media discussions and analysis of the conventions and debates were so exceedingly biased towards Democrats that one could not avoid becoming concerned with the lack of any truly fair assessment of the election process in their coverage. The San Diego Union-Tribune on the editorial page of Saturday, October 25th, nailed it when they so stated in an editorial entitled "Media bias? Some journalists have already voted". In it they astutely observed "We usually don´t put much stock in claims of media bias …But there are times when the partisanship and favoritism are so apparent that they cannot be denied. This presidential election is such an occasion….the media aren´t fooling anyone with their pretense of objectivity. Little wonder that Americans have such a low opinion of the journalism profession when they perceive reporters and editors as something less than honest brokers….too many supposedly objective journalists have made their first choice perfectly clear."

This was followed by another commentary on the editorial page of October 28th entitled "Noxious analogy, Comparing GOP, Nazi rallies reflects on media" wherein they observe "Decades from now …the first entry is sure to be the Barack Obama – national media coupling of 2008. What is going on now is simply stunning….Consider the readiness of journalists to liken McCain-Palin rallies to Nazi rallies in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s….In the Oct. 28 New Yorker, Steve Coll …became the latest….Steve Coll should be ashamed. But, then, so should many others in the national media…."

Precisely, although you will not see such an honest assessment on the editorial pages of The New York Times or The Washington Post nor hear a forthright discussion of this topic on television networks such as ABC, CBS, NBC, or the obviously extreme leftist MSNBC!

Americans should be very troubled when the fourth estate, inherently responsible for conveying political news fairly and with at the very least a modicum of objectivity, takes obvious sides so blatantly in an election. That should never happen, but it did.

We voters endured nearly two tiring years of arduous debate, pointed dissension, and vituperative discussion. We have again survived a contentious national election without bloodshed, coups, or riots. That alone is testament to the greatness of our democracy and our nation. We will officially swear in our new President on January 20th , 2009. He will have a challenging term in office as these are dangerous and uncertain times.

We now must all unite behind him, support him where we can, differ where we must, but always mindful that our voice has been heard in electing our leader and not having him forced upon us. Republican, Democrat or Other, we have spoken and the results have been tallied. We must now live with our vote.

May God bless America!

Postscript: I do not intend to disparage John McCain personally in any way for he is, undeniably, a true American patriot who has served his country with dedication and loyalty for many, many years and will continue to do so as he returns to the Senate where he will undoubtedly continue to battle for the average American and speak out against injustice and foolishness as he sees it. Although his loss is devastating, he will pick up his duties, regroup, and march on as he always has. We should be proud to have such an individual so unselfishly serving our nation and her people. Thank you, John.