Originally Posted by WillRockwell

I don't think you are at all knowledgeable of Biden's accomplishments. Here is just one paragraph describing his initiatives in foreign policy. Dumb people don't do things like this:

Joe Biden - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by Zyphlin

The problem was McCain didn't HAVE the people that should be "already in the fold".

McCain didn't have "the fold". He spent a good portion of the primaries essentially continuing his 8 year insult-session of conservatives and conservative values and then, after getting nominated, tried to act like Joe Conservative.

No one bought it.

Originally Posted by American

Hopefully you read the rest of the Wiki article. Anyhow, so what is he doing now? I don't see him leading anything.

Originally Posted by apdst

HA!!!! Yeah, right...NOT!!!

Originally Posted by Redress

I have seen no evidence of that. It's speculation at best either way.

Originally Posted by Zyphlin

The problem was McCain didn't HAVE the people that should be "already in the fold". Look at his polls numbers for a month + before the convention. Look at the amount of donations he was getting. Anecdotally think back to this forum and many of the posters here. I can tell you, both being in a heavily metropolitan area while being from a rural one, there was next to zero buzz on McCain.

McCain didn't have "the fold". He spent a good portion of the primaries essentially continuing his 8 year insult-session of conservatives and conservative values and then, after getting nominated, tried to act like Joe Conservative.

No one bought it.

The ONLY hope he had was to possibly pick a VP that would rally the base to him, because the way you win national elections is taking your base and then adding independents/undecideds to it. He didn't have his base to start with.

The problem McCain had is that by the time he did this he:

1. Had tried to act like "joe conservative" to much that many moderates decided the same thing Conservatives had long known, that you can't trust John McCain.
2. Didn't attempt to push strongly towards the middle after bringing in Palin, instead still trying to play himself off as conservatives even after he had got the base rallied.
3. Was never going to pull the assumed independents and moderate democrats people thought he would, because while he was a liberal's favorite Republican in the end he still was a Republican and Obama was a far more interesting choice for them.

Palin wasn't ABOUT inner cities, that wasn't what the nomination was for...traditionally liberal areas is where McCain was supposed to be the draw for. Palin was about trying to get a base that was completely and utterly disgusted with McCain and not motivated in the least to donate or get out to vote to rally up and get him that base that he could hopefully add moderates to.

McCain's failure, for the most part, was on McCain and his team far more than it was on Sarah Palin.

Originally Posted by Sturmrabe

True on your second point, FALSE on your first, McCain WAS well loved by centrists, till he lost his damn mind and listed to Roveites and tried to appeal to THEIR base, thereby scaring away HIS base....

Originally Posted by Dr_Patrick

If it was no accident why did he bother to clarify later on and apologize?

Originally Posted by Zyphlin

But would you have voted for him over Barack Obama? That's the issue. Like I said, he was every liberals favorite republican and the guy they always want Republicans to put up...but that doesn't mean they're going to VOTE for him, which is what too many moderate and liberal leaning republicans deluded themselves into thinking

Originally Posted by apdst

People are leaving the Republican party like the Jews leaving Egypt. That's not speculation. It only makes sense that they retained their rightward leanings. If they hadn't, then why not just become a Dem?