How McCain Could Have Won

Photo of Arizona Senator John McCain by Christopher Morris/VII.

In less than two weeks, Barack Obama will be the president elect. Maybe I'm wrong and John McCain will defy all the polls and all the gloomy Republicans who portray him as doomed, but I don't think so. What I wonder is this: Did it have to be this way? Was McCain doomed, or could different decisions along the way have changed things?

It was always going to be a tough year for Republicans. It's hard to follow a party that's been in office for eight years with another term. And the economy meant that George W. Bush was a particularly weighty albatross. But as recently as September, this was a close race. Now it's barely one, as the polls are breaking clearly in Obama's favor.. So what could the Arizona senator have done differently?

The Wrong Veep. According to press reports, McCain wanted to pick former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge or independent Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, but was convinced by his aides that nominating a pro-choice vice presidential candidate would irreparably divide the G.O.P. and lead to a floor fight at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. The aides were right, but a floor fight is precisely what McCain, in retrospect, needed to prove he wasn't Bush. Sure, Obama would have continued to tar him with the current president's economic policies, but a floor fight would have made it clear in the most dramatic way possible that he was not a typical Republican. While many on the left regard Lieberman as a pariah, for most Americans he's still Al Gore's running mate in 2000 and his selection would have been dramatic--the first time a nominee of one party had become the nominee of another. For his part, Ridge might have actually made Pennsylvania competitive.

The best thing that either man could claim is that he's not Sarah Palin, who though tremendously popular with the base has dragged down the ticket. Pluralities of Americans say she's not qualified, and in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll it's her presence on the ticket that's most often cited as a reason not to vote for McCain, ahead of McCain continuing Bush's economic policies.

John Kerry hasn't made much of a secret that he regrets picking John Edwards as his running mate. Even before this year's infidelity scandal, Edwards proved a dud when he ran with Kerry in 2004. He added no votes to the ticket, moved the dial not an inch in his home state of North Carolina, lost his debate to Dick Cheney, and gave a mediocre speech at the convention. But Kerry was talked into Edwards by his aides. A better nominee would have resisted that. The same could be said for John McCain.

The Economic Crisis. It's now clear that McCain's response to the economic crisis has only made his situation worse. Far from being seen as a steady hand at the tiller, he's come across as out of touch and erratic, as Colin Powell implied in his endorsement of Obama. Had McCain avoided calling the fundamentals of the economy strong, he would have saved himself a lot of grief. And the gambit of suspending his campaign, only to restart it, looked absurd.

McCain's sudden announcement during the second debate that he wanted to buy underwater mortgages looked desperate. His claim that Obama's policies were socialist was absurd, coming just days after the Bush administration dropped close to a trillion dollars buying corporate assets and stock. Had McCain rejected the bailout, he probably would have led to its defeat and the market would have tanked even more, so that wouldn't have served him politically. But if he had simply stuck to one theme--don't raise taxes in a recession--he might have gotten somewhere. Instead, he veered off into the absurd cul de sac of William Ayers and ACORN and domestic terrorism, which I'm sure tested off the charts with the base, but as anyone knows, this is not a base year.

The Three Threats. McCain could have based his campaign on the idea that there are three dire and existential threats to the United States: terrorism, global warming, and financial ruin. And then made the case he's the man to meet all three. He could have made it much more clear that he believes in global warming and knows how to stop it. That would have helped with swing voters. He could have repeatedly said that he knows how to stop terrorism and Obama doesn't. And he could have made it clear that no one is better equipped to control and manage the size of the government.

I'm not sure any of this would have worked. But it would have been true to who McCain is and it probably wouldn't have been any worse with where he will almost assuredly end up, back in the senate voting against President Obama's proposals.