McCain's Mistakes

A few days ago, on the eve of yesterday's election, several Fox News commentators- Chris Wallace, Brit Hume and, I think, Fred Barnes or Bill Kristol, discussed what they thought of McCain's campaign.

To a person, they despaired at how badly organized and run McCain's effort had been. With a handful of relevant issues: Obama's kinship with Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko and Bill Ayers; his socialist comments; his tax/welfare plan, to name a few, McCain had no shortage of targets.

But he never grabbed one or two and relentlessly drove them home. Furthermore, McCain's insistence on behaving as if he were on the Senate floor, displaying a sort of quaint decorum of an earlier era, served him badly.

Forget bogus calls to 'unity.' Presidential politics is always about playing hard and rough. We hear the same tired song about 'taking the high road' every four years. But it's the same result every time- candidates get mean, nasty, personal and untruthful.

The rookie Illinois Senator was no exception.

McCain, in the end, reminded me all too much of Bob Dole, as I first noted in this post, from March, 2007.

In fact, McCain even mouthed the exact phrase, "it's my turn," on Saturday Night Live recently.

Given that, in the words of one pundit this morning, a switch in results from only 40 counties across the US would have made McCain President-elect this morning, the latter's campaign mistakes are really what caused his loss.

In the end, McCain just seemed unable to mount a vigorous, clear, vibrant and coherent message to give voters something to be for, rather than merely be against reasonable fears of Democrat hegemony.