Pubbie take on what went wrong:

I wish Ron Paul had been the GOP candidate.
HE represented Originalist American principles and GOP core values.
McC does not.

This was the worst candidate and the worst campaign on the republican side I've ever witnessed. The primary system clearly failed the pubbie party and they may decide to go back to the smoke-filled rooms for choosing candidates.

Any of the other candidates would have annihilated Obama in debates and all McCain had to do to win was come out against that bailout, four simple words "I oppose the bailout" and he'd have won.

.....in fact, funny thing, contrary to all expectations dems apparently did not vote in meaningfully greater numbers than they did four years ago and the PUMAs actually did what was expected of them; what happened was that five or six million pubbies simply failed to show up and I'd assume this was almost entirely due to McCain supporting the bailout and acting flakey about it while doing it.

You haven't been keeping up with the stats coming out post election. Percentage of Democrats voting went up something like 2.5%, while percentage of Republicans voting went down about 1% (blatham posted the stats and links on another thread)

The Republicans certainly have to evaluate their situation, as do American conservatives/Conservatives. (I believe those could well be at least three different constituencies).

correction - it was the number, not percentage, of Democratic/Republican voters that changed

http://able2know.org/topic/113196-105#post-3467152

I disagree. Ron Paul was at odds with the originalists in several areas. He had some very good ideas that I liked, but he did not represent conservative core values when it comes to peace through strength, winning as opposed to losing once we have committed our military, free trade and protectionism. Had Paul not been so extreme on these issues, I think he might have been the GOP nominee.

But what went wrong is that McCain was over handled and was urged to be somebody he is not during much of the campaign. Too often he was saying words that he seemed uncomfortable with. So even some who previously liked him became disenchanted with him. There was never any clear message that resonated with the people articulated and promoted. It was there. But it was poorly communicated.

And for those of us who do not believe McCain is a conservative at heart or in principle on many issues, some of us held our nose and voted for him anyway. And some just couldn't bring themselves to do that.

Meanwhile Obama was efficient and effective in communicating and had a surrogate media backing him up and downplaying the flipflops, ambiguities, and stumbles so they could be more easily overlooked by his adoring public. And he's who we have. I wish him well and all success and pray that he accomplishes more good than harm.

Gunga, I couldn't get your link to load.

FR is down right now, try later today or this evening. Again dems were not voting in greater numbers than four years ago, and this thing represents a total failure on McCain's part personally. Something like five or six million pubbies just couldn't hold their noses hard enough to vote for the guy.

Pubbies?

That could never happen to a maverick.

And those grapes were probably sour, anyway . . .