But then came South Carolina, and through typical Republican internecine warfare, an opportunity lost.
Fast forward to 2008. Even after playing the good soldier over the past eight years, there always seemed to be that quality in him that he would rather be right than President. New Hampshire, again, helped resurrect his campaign against a somewhat anemic Republican field. At the time, everyone, including me, thought that Hillary Clinton would have been the Democratic nominee, and that this would be an election campaign between two worthy opponents.
Well, it still was between two deserving opponents, only Barack Obama was the Democratic standard-bearer. For some reason, the wheels came off in the weeks afterward.
It has been no secret amongst those who know me that I think that as one of the most important choices a candidate can make during a campaign for President of the United States, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska was woefully inadequate, picked, it seemed, to shore up the all-important "base" of the Republican Party, who viewed McCain with a considerable amount of suspicion. I can go into greater detail in future posts, but from the perspectives of national security, governmental expertise, education, and political views, it is clear that she is not the choice of most Americans, no matter how much they may agree with her positions on "values" issues.
On September 24th, McCain announced that he was suspending his campaign to hurry back to Washington to help with the $700B so-called Wall Street Bailout plan, and initially would not consider debating Obama unless and until the bailout plan was approved. As more than one person noted, a President is expected to be able to focus on more than one crisis at a time. Suspending the campaign to sell yourself to the voters as an executive to work on an essentially legislative issue was the wrong move, and did nothing to but reinforce the notion that perhaps he is more comfortable with the job that he has, rather than the job that he wanted. And then, when he got to the negotiations, several "anonymous" (probably Democratic) sources protrayed him as the least productive member of the group.
I could see if McCain were Chairman, the ranking member, or even an ordinary member of the Banking Committee. He had no real experience in that sector, and was even reported to be admitting (earlier in the campaign, to be sure) that domestic finances were not something he was comfortable with.
Finally, aside from the ambiguous theme of "Country First", the McCain Campaign could not seem to settle on one specific message, or even how he would differ from Barack Obama in his proposals. On several important issues, there wasn't a whole lot of daylight between the two men. On those in which they did differ, Obama offered a different way than the current administration (and by extension, McCain) already proposed. Changing the method of attack on Obama - calling him a different name or casting him in a different light, it seemed, every three days or so - gave the voters nothing to latch on to. Charles Krauthammer has a particularly insightful take on what went wrong.
Obama, by contrast, consistently protrayed McCain as another four years of the Bush Administration. A not-altogether accurate charge, since McCain's legislative history is pretty much everything that Bush Administration is against, but enough that Obama was able to make that connection take root and grow.
I think that McCain would indeed make a good president, if circumstances were a little different. I also think Obama will make a good, perhaps very good, president. Yes he could be a in over his head, as Maureen Dowd pointed out in Wednesday's edition, or he could be headed for greatness.
I think for most people this would have been a bad year to vote for Republicans in general. The fact that McCain was able to keep it within 10 points on Election Day speaks both to how voters look at him and the inexperience of Barack Obama. It wasn't enough, however, to close the deal.
