Did McCain had a chance or was he doomed

[Pericles]

He would have won if the economy was doing well. Instead, it was in total free fall.

It probably would have been a narrow loss in that case, Bush was still very unpopular and Iraq in particular was a big liability for Republicans, and Obama was a great candidate. If anything McCain was lucky to not lose by even more.

In the second week of September 2008, the economy was certainly not doing well, and yet McCain was leading in the polls early in the week. Then sh**t hit the fan hard with the Lehman Brothers that Friday and Monday and Obama led for the rest of the election.

That seems to have just been a convention bounce, and as I pointed out it is even harder for McCain to win than the national popular vote suggests as Obama had a significant advantage in the Electoral College. The fundamentals of the election were very bad for McCain.

I'm not saying that Obama wouldn't have won if the economy had imploded. But had it actually been a good economy, I don't think he would have won. In early September, the stock market was still down around 15% in the last year.

Yeah it is hard to tell what or how much of an impact the economic downturn had prior to September 2008. However I think a narrower Obama win is more plausible than a McCain win given the overall state of the country and that the tipping point state in 2008 was an Obama win of nearly 10 points. Bush's approval rating was already really bad before the downturn. There are also plenty of examples historically of early polls defying the fundamentals and then those early polls end up getting the race wrong and so I don't think McCain was ever actually going to win. That said a narrower Obama win probably means Democrats do worse in the House and Senate and this would have significant ramifications for his presidency.

[UWS]

McCain had a chance. After the 2008 Republican National Convention, he got a strong convention bounce at the point of leading Obama in national polls by between 3 to 10 percentage points. If we look at the polls made just after the 2008 RNC that was held from September 1-4, before the 2008 financial crisis, McCain would have won very narrowly in the Electoral Map 270-268 and also somewhere after he was leading in states like Michigan and Nevada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statewide_opinion_polling_for_the_2008_United_States_presidential_election

[2016]

McCain had a chance. After the 2008 Republican National Convention, he got a strong convention bounce at the point of leading Obama in national polls by between 3 to 10 percentage points. If we look at the polls made just after the 2008 RNC that was held from September 1-4, before the 2008 financial crisis, McCain would have won very narrowly in the Electoral Map 270-268 and also somewhere after he was leading in states like Michigan and Nevada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statewide_opinion_polling_for_the_2008_United_States_presidential_election

McCain was doomed when he said literally one Day before the Financial Collapse "The Fundamentals of the Economy are strong". That was one of the most hilarious Phrase I've ever heard.

[Orser67]

I don't think it was impossible for McCain to win in 2008. What I do think is that it'd take making the situation that year different (either a much better economy or, at the very least, the markets not crashing until after the election)...From 1840 on, there isn't a single case of the party controlling the White House winning the popular vote for the presidency in a fairly serious recession year, & only one instance (1876) of it winning the electoral vote in such a year (& even that was under dubious circumstances).

Pretty much this.

This by the way is also why all the talk about how Trump is damaging the GOP is nonsense, Bush was at 20 - 30% approval at the end of his presidency and there were thousands of articles written about how Bush had doomed the GOP, we all know what happened later, Trump on the other hand has never even gone below 35% and is around 44 - 45%, twice as popular as Bush was at his nadir and we still see nonsense articles about how Trump is damaging the GOP forever.

Bush did do long-term damage to the Republican Party. He missed his chance at building a dominant partisan coalition and his failed presidency pushed younger, suburban, and minority voters into the Democratic Party, leaving Republicans in a pretty terrible long-term demographic situation. We've had 7 even-year election cycles since 2006 (inclusive), and the GOP has only had a truly good cycles during mid-terms with a Democratic president.

[Redban]

He had no chance whatsoever. For so many reasons.

1). Bush's approval ratings were low; I never saw a President so loathed by the public as Bush was.

2). Related to #1 -- John McCain voted with the President over 90% of the time, and he campaigned hard for Bush in 2000 & 2004.  This detail created a good attack. The Democrats drilled the claim that McCain represented George W. Bush's third term.

3). The economy was poor. And that's even before the meltdown in late-September, before the $800 million stimulus. As early as late-2007, the U.S. dollar was worth less than the Canadian dollar; gas prices were setting record highs; food prices were rising; and banks were closing down (Bear Stearns) etc. This bad economy was part of Bush's record, which goes back to points #1 & #2.

4). Again, the economy was the big concern. And John McCain was an ex-military, foreign policy whiz, whose adviser said, "The fundamentals of the economy are sound."

5). The War in Iraq was unpopular. People were tired of it. And there's McCain who staunchly supported the War in Iraq and was still defending it in 2008. You might say, "Well what if he changed his view and opposed the war in Iraq?" Then he would would be branded a flip-flopper and would look worse.

6). Obama was a young, hip, charismatic candidate. His "coolness" mobilized young people. His background mobilized the black vote, spurring record turnout. He was a great public speaker. Even if you took away the bad economy, the poor incumbent approval ratings, the unpopular war -- Obama was still a difficult opponent.

So you see from the above -- there are factors beyond McCain's control. He couldn't make the economy better, he couldn't make people like Bush, he couldn't alter his voting record, he couldn't change his views on Iraq without losing his credibility & base. Therefore, he couldn't win.

In other words -- he was doomed from the start by the economy, Bush, and Iraq.

[Del Tachi]

2008 was unwinnable for the GOP; McCain actually ran a pretty decent campaign (except for the Palin pick), and Obama had just about the lowest ceiling of any Democrat running that year.

Just imagine how much of a landslide 2008 would have been in something like an Edwards/Bayh vs Giuliani/Romney race:

(✓) Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC) / Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) - 452 electoral votes; 70,114,855 votes (54.8%)
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NY) / Former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) - 86 electoral votes; 55,656,865 votes (43.5%)

[Redban]

2008 was unwinnable for the GOP; McCain actually ran a pretty decent campaign (except for the Palin pick), and Obama had just about the lowest ceiling of any Democrat running that year.

McCain had other miscues.

A big one is the way he suspended his campaign to go to Washington after the September collapse. He went in there, trying to look like some dramatic John Wayne hero riding into D.C. to save the day and get the bailout passed. Then once he got there, he did very little of note, and the bill failed to pass. Suspended his campaign for nothing.

Plus, he called for them to cancel the next debate, which Obama responded (correctly) that the crisis makes the debate for critical for Americans.

[dw93]

Pre Lehman Brothers McCain had a very slim chance. After it collapsed he had none. If Romney or Huckabee had been the GOP nominee that year, either one would've been doomed from the start and lost to Obama by a bigger margin. McCain really was the best candidate for the GOP to run that year.

[Sumner 1868]

The Palin pick was actually a net-positive for McCain, however much people want to deny it.

[morgankingsley]

In retrospect, no it wasn't winnable. Probably the least winnable election for incumbent party since WW2. aside from maybe 52. That being said, McCain was very much able to rack up a closer race if he claimed the extremely close NC and IN and second district NE. He would have gotten I think 200 that way. But that would have already been his ceiling. But he STILL would have done better than basically every other Republican that year.

[Redban]

In retrospect, no it wasn't winnable. Probably the least winnable election for incumbent party since WW2. aside from maybe 52. That being said, McCain was very much able to rack up a closer race if he claimed the extremely close NC and IN and second district NE. He would have gotten I think 200 that way. But that would have already been his ceiling. But he STILL would have done better than basically every other Republican that year.

So the 2012 map exactly?