Yeah...I don't really understand why some of them hated McCain so much. Did they really think a bible-thumping, hardcore Republican could have won in that kind of political climate? I thought what held McCain back was running what I would call a "traditional" Republican campaign. He conceded the economy and healthcare from the start and decided to focus on the military and a hawkish foreign policy. And then he was kind of backed into being socially conservative as well. He would at least have had more of a fighting chance if he wouldn't have looked like such an amateur on economic issues.
This is the way I look at it. During an election, you should not pander to your base once the primary is over. The base is so loyal to your party that they are going to vote for you anyways no matter how much they piss and moan. You risk a lot more by pandering to your base than not trying to reach out to independents, who ALWAYS decide the election. You can't win a national election just with votes from your own party.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
