Watching Frontline: The Choice 2008 on PBS - These will be the toughest two weeks!

[kid a]

The segment about McCain's campaign unraveling in late 2007 and his rebirth in New Hampshire on a shoestring budget ends with a description of a political man willing to do what it takes to reach his goal. He has slithered his way in and out and in and out again of Bush's arms. Embraced Falwell after denouncing far right issues. It will be interesting to watch his chameleon approach to the final days of his long political dream. Interesting and scary.

[Drunken Irishman]

1. Not really.

McCain did nothing to get back into the race. I am tired of the media saying this. McCain's campaign would have been DEAD if it weren't for Romney blowing up in the final days of the Iowa Caucus. Had Romney won, he would have carried NH and it would be an Obama-Romney matchup, not an Obama-McCain one.

McCain isn't best when he's down. McCain didn't do anything to revive his campaign. He just got lucky the other Repubs were complete campaign idiots.

[kid a]

3. The program glossed over Jan to March pretty fast for the GOP

And didn't seem to portray them as the dysfunctional mess they were.

[Drunken Irishman]

4. It was a mess.

I've never seen a group as bad as they were. I mean, every one of them sucked.

You had Romney who had no ground game in Iowa, banked on his money and name to get him the votes there and didn't once see Huckabee coming, so they didn't have an answer.

Huckabee was never going to be a realistic candidate, since he failed to play well in moderate states (which happened to be the larger and more delegate rich states).

Because Romney had no post-Iowa plan (it was essentially win Iowa, build on that with a New Hampshire victory and ride it out), that provided McCain the chance to succeed there. This happened because McCain already was popular because of his 2000 run, however, his numbers were dismal there. In December of 2007, Romney held a 14 point lead in New Hampshire, but once he lost Iowa -- like Dean in 2004 -- his numbers tanked. McCain gained and held the lead all through the week post-Iowa Caucus.

A lot of this was made possible by Rudy Giuliani, who decided for whatever reason to not campaign in either Iowa or New Hampshire. Talk about a fuck up of epic proportions! I mean, New York was a regional area, he should have won, but he decided to hold out until Florida. Which set in motion a McCain victory, even though McCain didn't really run a campaign in Iowa and instead, camped out in NH on the off chance Romney imploded and that is exactly what happened. Had Romney carried Iowa, he would have probably sustained his lead in New Hampshire, which knocks McCain out, giving us a Romney-Giuliani showdown in Florida.

But instead, Romney crashed in Iowa and McCain was able to position himself for a victory. But even then, McCain still failed to really dominate. He struggled against Huckabee and Romney and really only won because the delegate rich moderate states voted for him. So even with his comeback, he still didn't get the type of victory you saw from Kerry in 2004 after he won New Hampshire...though that was also aided not by an outside candidate, but instead his own doings in Iowa. McCain couldn't even do that.

He was the Republican nominee by default.

[melody]

2. McCain wasn't the best candidate ... he was the only one they didn't all hate

They burned through everyone else as "frontrunner".

McCain, short of a Lourdes-level miracle, is crispy done.

[glowing]

5. What the media wanted, didn't work out.

they wanted Guiliani or Mittens.. Thompson was a thrown in the mix to try and throw numbers off of McCain and onto Mittens...

Anyway, they should know, after campaigning against the liberal media elite, why would their fundie pugs trust them to give them their candidate..

McCain was the default candidate.. Sarah saved him with the fundies... McCain was surprised that he was endorsed by Crist... Crist wants out of Florida, the state is imploding around him.. and he won't win another election in 2yrs. Crist saw the numbers and threw it his way. Besides that, the turn out wasn't that good.