Pennsylvania

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Economic collapse muted the display of Mccain's electoral strength. All pre-Lehman polls indicated Mccain to be a stronger candidate in swing states than Romney 2012.

Romney's economic positions actually hurt him.

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McCain got a huge jump in the polls because of the Palin pick. Then she opened her mouth.

Palin was highly scripted. No different from Rubio, but she was a VP, all she needed to do was stick to the script. Financial crisis complicated the issue, because it was a dynamic situation for which the Republican establishment did not have an established talking point for (initially some opposed, others supported TARP, until they eventually formally endorsed TARP in unison). Rubio had similar troubles in non-scripted settings.

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McCain got a huge jump in the polls because of the Palin pick. Then she opened her mouth.

Palin was highly scripted. No different from Rubio, but she was a VP, all she needed to do was stick to the script. Financial crisis complicated the issue, because it was a dynamic situation for which the Republican establishment did not have an established talking point for (initially some opposed, others supported TARP, until they eventually formally endorsed TARP in unison). Rubio had similar troubles in non-scripted settings.

Have you seen Game Change (the movie)?

Same as Rubio. Rehearsed, Scripted, did everything per handler recommendation.

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Economic collapse muted the display of Mccain's electoral strength. All pre-Lehman polls indicated Mccain to be a stronger candidate in swing states than Romney 2012.

Romney's economic positions actually hurt him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF9ndn-R1_I&t=126s

This is the day Lehman collapsed (so polls before this day had to be compiled for this map). Mccain was doing far better than Romney ever did in 2012 at this point.

The final results of 2008 make it easy to forget what a close, intense election it was for much of the year.

It also allows people to forget how much of a polarizing figure Obama was. Hillary actually polled better than Obama swing-state wise.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/05/clintons-closing-argument-to-superdelegates/53314/

Obama wasn't picked for electability, he was picked for running a polarizing ideological campaign.

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Economic collapse muted the display of Mccain's electoral strength. All pre-Lehman polls indicated Mccain to be a stronger candidate in swing states than Romney 2012.

Romney's economic positions actually hurt him.

I agree with this post. Without the financial crisis McCain could easily have squeaked a victory on the back of a Palin-inspired culture war victory as Trump managed in 2016.

Economic collapse muted the display of Mccain's electoral strength. All pre-Lehman polls indicated Mccain to be a stronger candidate in swing states than Romney 2012.

Romney's economic positions actually hurt him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF9ndn-R1_I&t=126s

This is the day Lehman collapsed (so polls before this day had to be compiled for this map). Mccain was doing far better than Romney ever did in 2012 at this point.

The final results of 2008 make it easy to forget what a close, intense election it was for much of the year.

It also allows people to forget how much of a polarizing figure Obama was. Hillary actually polled better than Obama swing-state wise.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/05/clintons-closing-argument-to-superdelegates/53314/

Obama wasn't picked for electability, he was picked for running a polarizing ideological campaign.

This is a bit exaggerated though. Really, Obama was picked for running a (deliberately non-polarising) "let's make America post-racial" campaign. Clinton polled better in the swing states because she had more support among the WWC demographic which is highly concentrated there (as we saw in 2016), not because Obama was polarising. In fact, his fav/unfav during the campaign were stable in the low-60s/mid-30s. I also found this article from the primary about Obama bringing up Clinton's relatively high unfavourability and saying she "starts off with 47% of the country against her" (sound familiar?).

Though, in retrospect, I think things would have worked out better for the Democratic party and America if Clinton had won the nomination in 08. President Hillary could have avoided the whitelash Democrats suffered under Obama and also probably would have handled healthcare with more experience, then handing the baton to Obama's unifying post-racial message in the more 'woke' America of 2016.

He was more polarizing in Middle America (and especially the South) for sure. That's how the Blue Dogs were wiped out, that event begat the Tea Party. He won by pandering to the Left, and used the anti iraq war card to make an argument to overturn the foreign policy consensus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6f4tZFZ_-g

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Economic collapse muted the display of Mccain's electoral strength. All pre-Lehman polls indicated Mccain to be a stronger candidate in swing states than Romney 2012.

Romney's economic positions actually hurt him.

I agree with this post. Without the financial crisis McCain could easily have squeaked a victory on the back of a Palin-inspired culture war victory as Trump managed in 2016.

I still believe that in the end, the best McCain could have done was a 1968 Humphrey or 1976 Ford style narrow loss even without the financial crisis.  The fundamentals were still horrible for McCain and much worse than they were for even Humphrey and Ford.  Bush's approval ratings were in the 20s and the economy was clearly in recession territory.  Unemployment rose from around 4.4% in summer 2007 to 6.2% in late summer 2008.  No candidate has ever won with the fundamentals so much against them.

Apparently, the fundamentals were stacked against GWB, how did he do?

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I still believe that in the end, the best McCain could have done was a 1968 Humphrey or 1976 Ford style narrow loss even without the financial crisis.  The fundamentals were still horrible for McCain and much worse than they were for even Humphrey and Ford.  Bush's approval ratings were in the 20s and the economy was clearly in recession territory.  Unemployment rose from around 4.4% in summer 2007 to 6.2% in late summer 2008.  No candidate has ever won with the fundamentals so much against them.

Someone said that had the economic collapse not happened, Obama's 2008 win would resemble his 2012 win - 4 popular vote lead, and the 2012 state margins.

That sounds about right. Palin could have been a huge boon if she was better prepped. She truly was the star of the 2008 election - even over Obama. No one cared about McCain.

Would've been far closer than 2012. Before Lehman collapsed, not a single poll had Obama up in FL, VA, etc., in contrast, Hillary easily beat Mccain in FL and was competitive in a number of southern states like AR.

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I still believe that in the end, the best McCain could have done was a 1968 Humphrey or 1976 Ford style narrow loss even without the financial crisis.  The fundamentals were still horrible for McCain and much worse than they were for even Humphrey and Ford.  Bush's approval ratings were in the 20s and the economy was clearly in recession territory.  Unemployment rose from around 4.4% in summer 2007 to 6.2% in late summer 2008.  No candidate has ever won with the fundamentals so much against them.

Someone said that had the economic collapse not happened, Obama's 2008 win would resemble his 2012 win - 4 popular vote lead, and the 2012 state margins.

That sounds about right. Palin could have been a huge boon if she was better prepped. She truly was the star of the 2008 election - even over Obama. No one cared about McCain.

Would've been far closer than 2012. Before Lehman collapsed, not a single poll had Obama up in FL, VA, etc., in contrast, Hillary easily beat Mccain in FL and was competitive in a number of southern states like AR.

There were plenty that had Obama ahead of McCain in Virginia before 9/15.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/va/virginia_mccain_vs_obama-551.html#polls

Was exaggerating, but if you look at the trending of numbers before 9/15 overall Mccain looked more like Obama did in 2012 in those states than like Romney.

For sure, had Romney been the nominee in '08, he would've been wiped out.

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Would've been far closer than 2012. Before Lehman collapsed, not a single poll had Obama up in FL, VA, etc., in contrast, Hillary easily beat Mccain in FL and was competitive in a number of southern states like AR.

Obama was struggling in the polls in Virginia and Florida leading up to election day 2012.

He would have separated himself in 2008 as well. Same margins as 2012. No one cared about McCain and Palin was a flop after initial excitement.

Obama would have won Virginia 3-5 points in 2008 and Florida by 0.5-1.5.

You're talking about last minute partisan surges, which happens in all normal elections, and would've happened for Mccain too, if not for the collapse. That would've put him over the top in a number of states. Like I said, Palin was no different from Rubio, she had a script, she wouldn't have needed to have done anything else other than read off it under normal conditions. Put Rubio in the same position, and he would've done the exact same things as Palin.

Less people were excited about Romney. Mccain at least had some centrist appeal.