One of the lingering questions concerning the 2008 election is what would have happened if John McCain had opposed the bailout. Many of the R’s who voted for it the first time only did so on his lead…what if he lead them the other way?
Craig Shirley had an interesting take:
Had McCain opposed the bailout, though he may still have lost, he not only would have made the campaign interesting by positioning himself as the principled, populist champion standing up to the corrupt, monied elites, he would have also left a legacy for the GOP, of once again being a Reaganesque party, believing in the many people rather than the few elites. McCain had a chance to save the Republican Party, but he blew it.
Setting aside that best any R could have done this year was lose the popular vote while winning 272 electoral votes, could McCain have won if he voted against the bailout? No. Could someone like Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani have won? Maybe. McCain would have needed to vote against the bailout AND not let his feelings get hurt when the media attacked him for it.
-Romney would have opposed it and out debated Obama on the economy in all three debates.
-Rudy would have opposed it and corrected Chris Matthews and Wolf Blitzer that they were framing the argument the wrong way.
-NEITHER of them would have sent their running mate to do a network interview before they publicly made their position clear.
John McCain? He would nominate Andrew Cuomo to the SEC to show the media how bi-partisan he was.
Goldwater lost in 1964, but because of his principled campaign, conservatives knew they had something to build upon. Reagan lost in 1976 but again, because of his principled challenge of Ford, we felt as if we had something to build upon. McCain’s campaign will go down as Dole 2.0; ineffectual, meaningless.
UPDATE: A new “maverick” in town?
UPDATE DEUX: To quote Allahpundit quoting Adam Sandler, things that could have been brought to my attention YESTERDAY!!!
