To the people who have responded to the first post, you've all brought up some great points, things I would have listed myself (to those of you who didn't, shame on you
).
I've tried very hard to assess the campaign with an unbiased eye. To do this, I sort of think to myself "what advice would you give the campaign if you were working for them?" Sometimes I think I come up with better answers than those who are actually managing the campaign. Anyway, here are a few things that seem very obvious to me:
-Negative attacks are not working this election cycle, period. It shows in the polls, and it's been shown in the debates. Every time he goes blatantly negative, it turns a large segment of voters off. Why is he still doing this? It seems to me that he's modeling the campaign off of previous campaigns that have used this type of message successfully, so why is it not working for him? Has the American public woken up from some collective fog after eight years of a Bush administration, and they're no longer driven to vote by negativity? Or is the McCain campaign using negative campaigning in an incorrect way? One thing that's occurred to me is that the Bush campaign used a couple of negative factors and drilled them into people's minds over and over until they were so ingrained, they practically became The Truth - flip-flopping, and Swiftboating. McCain is all over the place with his negativity. One day Obama is a Muslim. The next day he's a terrorist, or at the very least, a terrorist sympathizer. Then his wife hates America. Then his former pastor is a radical who hates America. Then he's going to steal from the rich and give to the poor, and doesn't that make him a socialist? And on and on. I think it's gotten to the point that Americans have been so oversaturated with Obama controversy/falsehoods that they've pretty much tuned it out, and now they're hating the messenger. This ties in to my next point:
-McCain and his campaign have seemed terribly erratic, both in message and in behaviour. He needs a few good talking points, and he needs to stay on message. I think he may be starting to improve in this area in recent days, talking more and more about the differences between him and Obama with regard to taxes and the economy, but it's probably too little, too late. Behaviourally, he needs someone to coach him with regard to body language and facial expression during debates, because he certainly doesn't hide his contempt well. He's been coming off as an angry old man, probably seeming irrational, and I don't think that's what American moderates want leading their country these days. The eye rolling, the tongue thrusting, the excessive blinking, and the angry expressions aren't doing him any favours. His habit of repeating certain phrases over and over is annoying, to say the least. In the last debate, he finally nixed "my friends" from his vernacular, but he replaced it with "Joe the plumber." When people use the same phrases over and over, it makes them seem like a shady salesman to me, and I don't think I'm out of the ordinary in feeling that way. The term "maverick" has become a joke these days. He should be speaking to the American public in a more relaxed, conversational way. He's capable of it - I've seen him make appearances on tv where he does come off as more relaxed and congenial. Stop acting like he's trying to sell the American public a used car that's going to fall apart as soon as it drives off the lot.
-The Palin choice has been a failure, in my view, but it didn't necessarily need to be that way. She has not brought over many Hillary democrats or moderates. To the contrary, I think that many women have been insulted that the campaign assumed someone like her could act as their surrogate Hillary. Where she does excel though is in solidifying the Republican base. If McCain had selected her earlier, so that her public vetting had been a distant memory by now, perhaps that might have been to his advantage. As it is, all of the anti-Palin information and the astoundingly bad interviews are still fresh in our minds. Also, announcing her earlier, she could have done what she seems to have been settling into nicely, lately - satisfying the base, while McCain could have spent more of his energy courting the moderates.
-Varitek made an excellent point regarding the ground games of the two campaigns, and in one of the other threads a few weeks ago, I posted an article from 538 that talked about the stark contrast between the two campaigns. Obama's is a large, well-oiled, energetic, grassroots effort. McCain's seems to be practically nonexistent in comparison. What could have been done about that? Well, for starters, energy, tone and motivation has to come from the top, and it seems that McCain volunteers just aren't getting that.
-Finally, I think that a major factor in McCain's campaign and its flaws is simply how poorly it compares to the Obama campaign. Obama's has been practically flawless, from what I can tell, and holding up the McCain campaign in comparison, or probably any other campaign, for that matter, makes McCain's flaws all the more glaring and obvious.
There's much more I could add, but I'll leave it at that for now. When I grow up, I think I should be a campaign advisor.