Excellent article.

news flash politics is a fical mistress...duh...you know exactly what "base" they were going after why didn't you say so...you did the right thing, don't pat yourself on the back for what your supposed do...good read

Thanks Mark, Good epitaph.

Why doesn't anyone ever suggest it might be that one man simply doesn't match up to the other in the voters' mind? We all saw the debates. It's the candidate, stupid!

You sidestep the irresponsibility of the Palin pick. This kind of 30,000 foot viewlaundry list look at the campaign doesn't work in the context of the Palin pick, which encapsulated and entombed the McCain campaign: cynical, desperate, conflicted.

This piece got it right. Everybody wants to believe it's all about guru consultants and strategies when its really a function of external events and the personalities that show up at the right time, as Tolstoy concluded. Most so-called political geniuses rack up way more losses than wins. A genius is the jockey that hopped on the right horse.

You had me until this line: "But I also don't think they had many options, and they tried them all." As trenchant a critique as any I've seen, and it undermines much of the rest. It's true that it's easy to critique a failed result, but it's also too easy to shrug aside sound criticism with mutterings about armchair quarterbacking.

Barack could not have won this campaign if Bush hadn't set him up. Everything from his relative lack of experience, his race, and his name, counted against him. Factor that in, too - that both sides were proceeding from serious disadvantages - and then you'll be able to wipe your eyes clear and see how flawed the campaign has been on the Republican side, whether it's Schmidt's fault or not. It's not just two great political talents out front: it's organization, planning, assiduous strategy and all the rest. It would be silly to fail to recognize that one side has had it and one side has not. We knew this even when McCain had his edge in the polls, we knew this when we could recognize the Palin bubble for what it was. It hasn't been all hindsight; the failures were recognized as they were happening.

Sorry, but I'm not buying it. Sure, McCain was never going to have an easy time winning, but they could have kept it close had his campaign not been so inept. Bottom line is that Palin pick (which was symptomatic of their entire campaign) ceded their best arguments against Obama and directly contradicted the "Country First" theme. Because of the Palin pick, "suspending" the campaign, and all the other idiotic gimmicks the McCain campaign tried to pull, all the Obama team had to do was sit back and watch the wheels come off the bus.

Thanks for saying what needed to be said. I may be an Obama supporter, but I've been dismayed (not entertained) by the finger-pointing and bitter criticisms aimed toward McCain/ Palin and the campaign staffs by supposed McCain supporters. Many with a platform to broadcast their opinions would be wise to observe the advice to save the armchair quarterbacking for after the game. McCain's luck has been pretty pitiful this go 'round. He doesn't need to be undermined by those within his ranks, as well.

Also, thanks for explaining why you left after the primaries. I was wondering why I wasn't hearing about you in the papers, oblivious to whether you'd left the campaign.

OK article, McCain has long benefited from a media that glorifies his indecisive and vindictive nature as a evidence of a "maverick" quality.
However, in this campaign McCain has behaved like Captain Queeg rather than the stoic mythology folks like yourself and Salter built for him. There is such a thing as winning or losing with one's honor intact and regardless of the outcome McCain will have lost his.

I respect your decision not to tear Obama down, but after this election is over, please admit that the McCain campaign was terrible. Maybe he didn't have a chance to win in the current climate, but he also didn't have to go skeevy as they did. McCain, as it turned out, was a turd of a candidate, and there's very little you can do to dress up a turd.

I disagree with the article. It goes too far the other way to let McCain's campaign off the hook. The choice of Palin, and their erratic response to the economic crisis, did them in. Palin was the result of a lack of courage. McCain was afraid to stand up to the Christian wingnuts. The second problem was sheer mismanagement of the candidate, or maybe by the candidate.

I will be very interested to know who made that boneheaded decision to "suspend" the campaign. It was a cheesy stunt, and it absolutely killed McCain. I'd also love to know who decided not to let the lovely Sarah meet the press. She was a rotten pick, but sequestering her was truly stupid.

What you are saying is that you condone the gutter politics of John McCain who abandoned the issues to race bait, lie and distort.

McCain views himself as an honorable man. Honorable men do not repudiate principles as expedient. In 2000, McCain called leaders of the religious right agents of intolerance. Palin is from the religious right McCain remonstrated against.

In July of 1999, McCain said: "Did you see the reaction when I said I promise you I won't spin because spinning is lying?" he asked after the event at the veterans post. "Everybody applauds. They know what spinning is. It's a failure to take responsibility for our mistakes."

McCain is fond of saying he is a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. Roosevelt said, "We cannot afford to differ on the question of honesty if we expect our republic permanently to endure. Honesty is not so much a credit as an absolute prerequisite to efficient service to the public.Unless a man is honest, we have no right to keep him in public life; it matters not how brilliant his capacity."

Too many are too willing to be apologists for candidates who simply lie to win. Whatever honor McCain had before Bush-Rove showed him gutter politics work has be forever besmirched. He is a man who refuses to acknowledge he is not the person he wants to be.

The refusal of the author to condemn McCain's debasement is so telling. The politics of hate may gain victory, but at what cost?

I have a slightly different take on why this election was ever even (and still sorta is) close and it has a lot less to do with the tactics and philosophies of Steve Schmidt.

I'm going to illustrate my point through my parents.

My parents are in their sixties, middle-class, educated, relatively open-minded, and both have recently defected from the Republican Party to the en vogue Independent status. And they both are voting for McCain. Why? Because they say that, even though they like Obama, they just don't know enough about him; that he seemed to cross paths with a lot of nefarious characters in his early political career.

Oh, yeah. Did I mention that they both strongly dislike McCain and everything about his campaign? Strange, huh?

My parents, and millions of other baby boomers just like my parents (who don't think their racist and in their hearts aren't), don't know it but this rationale is their subconscious excuse for not wanting to vote for a man who's half black.

Please forgive me for bringing this back to race but if Obama were white, this would never have been one. If John Kennedy were standing before the nation right now as the Democratic candidate, saying the exact same things and running the exact same campaign that Obama is, this would be the blowout that would reflect the previously mentioned 91% disapproval rating of the country's direction.

I think deep in my parents' psyche it really isn't as simple as black and white, though. It's not that they think blacks are inferior or unworthy in any way. For them, electing a president that isn't a wealthy, affluent white man is just too outside of the way things are in their minds. Although I know in many ways they want to, voting for Obama means acknowledging America has turned a huge corner and that our lives, our country, and our government will never look the same again.

I, as most Americans (I hope), welcome this change with open arms but to many it is a scary, scary thing. Not scary because Obama is a different color but scary simply because it's change.

At this point McCain will seem lucky if he can keep his senate seat.