Why Did John McCain Lose?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Let's start with those "headwinds" intowhich he was flying. The president of the United States, the leaderof his party, was at Nixon-Carter levels of approval, 25 percent,going into Election Day. Sixty-two percent of the nation thought theeconomy was the No. 1 issue, and 93 percent thought the economy wasbad. Two-thirds of the nation thought the war McCain championed was amistake, and 80 percent to 90 percent thought the country was on the wrong course.

As a political athlete, measured by charisma and communicationsskills, McCain is not even in the same league with Barack Obama. Hewas outspent by vast sums, and his political organization was farinferior. It is a wonder McCain was even competitive, dealt such ahand. Yet, by Sept. 10, McCain, thanks to Sarah Palin, whoseselection had proven a sensation, had come from eight points behindto take the lead, and Joe Biden was wailing that maybe Hillary wouldhave been a better choice for Obama. Then came the collapse of LehmanBrothers, the bailout of AIG, McCain's assertion that the economy wasfundamentally sound, and his panicked return to Washington to assistBush and Hank Paulson push through a wildly unpopular bank bailout —using 700 billion in tax dollars to buy up rubbish paper the idiotbankers had put on their books. The Establishment's Man had come tosave the Establishment.

Suddenly, it was McCain who was down 10 points, as the feline andferal press went on a wilding attack on Sister Sarah. He neverrecovered, though the McCain-Palin final push left egg on the facesof pollsters who were predicting a double-digit triumph for Obama.Perhaps no Republican, in these circumstances, could have won,especially with that month-long bloodletting on Wall Street thatwiped out $4 trillion to $5 trillion in stock and bond value,ravaging IRAs and 401Ks, portfolios and pensions alike. Yet, McCainmight still have won had he not, like his three fellow establishmentRepublicans Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole, beeninhibited by the Mainstream Media and his own Beltway beliefs.

Consider. In California, where a liberal judiciary had ordered thestate to recognize homosexual marriages, voters, by 52 to 48, slappedthe judges across the face and ordered the ban reimposed and placedin the California constitution. Arizona and Florida also voted tooutlaw gay marriage, by landslides. The New York Times deploredthe "ugly outcome" of these three referenda and said voterswere "enshrining bigotry," thus calling the majority of Californians, Arizonans and Floridians bigots and their Bible-rooted Christian beliefs nothing but bigotry.

Good to know what they think of us. Yet, McCain, who might have beenout front on these moral and cultural issues, paid only lip service —and lost Florida, and California by a landslide. In Missouri, whereMcCain eked out a victory, a proposal to make English the officialstate language carried six to one. In Nebraska, a proposal to banaffirmative action carried 58 to 42, but lost in a 50-50 tie inColorado. Parental notification won 48 percent support in California,a far higher share of the vote than McCain got, while a measure tooutlaw abortion except in cases of rape, incest and the life of themother got 45 percent in South Dakota. Had McCain made an issue of Obama's support for a Freedom of Choice Act that would eliminate allstate restrictions on abortion, he could have forced Obama to defend what yet remains a radical and extreme view in America.

While Barack was locking up black America, McCain failed to hold onto Bush's share of the white working class, though Obama had the mostliberal voting record in the Senate and long associations with thelikes of Jeremiah Wright and '60s bomber William Ayers. Perhapsfearful his "good guy" reputation with his old buddies in hismedia "base" would be imperiled, McCain ruled Wright off limits andseemed hesitant even to go after the Ayers connections. Lee Atwaterwould not have been so ambivalent. Leo Durocher put itsuccinctly: "Nice guys finish last."

Ultimately, however, the Beltway Republicans are losing MiddleAmerica because they are ideologically incapable of addressing twogreat concerns: economic insecurity and the perception that we arelosing the America that we grew up in. Economic insecurity istraceable to NAFTA-GATT globalization, under which it makes economicsense for U.S. companies to close factories here, build plants inChina and export back to the United States. Manufacturing nowaccounts for less than 10 percent of all U.S. jobs. Social insecurityis traceable to mass immigration, legal and illegal, which hasbrought in scores of millions who are altering the character ofcommunities and competing with U.S. workers by offering theirservices for far less pay.

These are the twin causes of death of the Reagan coalition, and aslong as the Republican Party is hooked on K Street cash, it will notaddress either, and thus pass, blissfully addicted, from this earth.