Subitled: More about John McCain, and his supporters. There have been articles ad nauseum entitled “Why Obama Won” and “Why McCain Lost”. As Helen of Margaret and Helen said in her most recent post, someone suggested that McCain had a “steep hill” to climb, what with the economy and being unable to shake off the association with Bush. Wait a minute, said Helen. The other guy was a black man named Barack Hussein Obama–and you think it was McCain who had the steep hill?
Slate Magazine chose three possible dates as the day McCain lost the election: September 15th, the day he declared that the fundamentals of the economy are strong–which is the same day that Lehman Brothers failed–or October 15th, the date of the final debate where Obama spoke intelligently about the financial crisis and McCain trotted out Joe the Plumber. In the end, Slate settled on September the 24th. That’s the day McCain “cancelled” the debate and flew to Washington to save the day as Congress was negotiating the bailout. McCain’s decision was couched as a “country first” move; after all, what was more important? A silly debate, or rescuing the country? Then, after accomplishing nothing, he went ahead and participated in the debate anyway. What? Would the real John McCain and whatever he means or believes in, please stand up?
Given those three choices, I agree with Slate, but I’m surprised they didn’t include McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin. My own Jeff the Mechanic said he thought that decision alone would cost McCain 10 percentage points. In my mind, the flight to Washington to rescue the Rescue, and Palin’s selection, are all of a piece. They were impulsive decisions with no clear-cut purpose or “message” behind them. (I think I’ll add “message” to the list of words I’m ready to deep-six.) And I have to tell you–that’s what scared me the most. While I was always an Obama supporter, in the beginning I held the view that it wouldn’t be so bad if McCain won. But as time passed, I began to be truly afraid of even the possibility that he would win. Then our country would be guided not by judgement, but by McCain’s gut reactions–and his gut reactions were looking increasingly wild and unbalanced to me.
I can’t help but believe that McCain’s staunchest supporters must have looked on with dismay as he lurched from one stunt or strategy to another, although I haven’t heard any of them admit it yet. At the moment, it’s A) his campaign staff, B) Sarah Palin, C) GWB and the economy (the steep hill theory). As soon as they get down to saying it was John McCain, they’ll be getting somewhere. The only person who presently admits that is John McCain himself. “It wasn’t you, it was me”, he said in his concession speech.
And as I watched that speech, I marveled at how, in defeat, McCain behaved like the noble patriot and warrior we thought him to be. It was like for the last several months, his body had been taken over by an alien being, that caused him to scowl and spit venom. When the audience began to boo at the mention of Obama’s name, McCain quieted them with a simple “Please…” and holding his hands up, palms out, in a “Stop this” gesture. If only he had conducted himself in this manner–and insisted that Palin do so as well–for the last several months, I kept thinking, he might have won.
