John McCain was neither a martyr nor a maverick

During the 2004 presidential town hall debate, I watched from the edge of my seat as George W. Bush effectively sealed his re-election bid with a three-word response to an accusation about a timber company, of all things. It was at this moment, which did little to sway my own vote but surely would prove to be a game-changer for the large bloc of American voters who favour likeability (and likeness) over intelligence, that I knew the good ol' country boy image would pay off, again.

John "The Ketchup King" Kerry, as I had reluctantly come to call him, was whining about misinterpretation of his tax policy and how it would adversely affect only a minute portion of small businesses. He claimed that Bush's timber company would count as a small business for its contribution of something like $80 to his own campaign. I think we were all a little lost as to his point, when our incumbent Decider in Chief rose from his booster seat and looked at the crowd with wrinkles in his forehead and mocking curiosity shining from his squinting eyes: "I own a timber company?" he said. "That's news to me …" And after a long pause, he asked with true genius and genuine comedy, "Need some wood?"

I laughed so hard I cried, then cried some more as Bush went on to win the election, taking both the electoral college and popular vote majorities, the latter of which he proved not to need in his 2000 ascent to the White House. It was a legitimate victory that could not be contested - only learned from.

Same game, new player

Perhaps it's silly that one moment in a 90-minute bare-knuckle brawl of a single presidential debate could, at least in my mind, seal the fate of the race. But it did, and after Election Day, I vowed to never underestimate the power of humour and the art of question re-direction.

This year, the Republican party put up another presidential candidate who also made plenty-a-ripple in the comedy pool, but this one did so in a way that, rather than drawing genuine laughter, ignited the cringe factor in friends and liberal elite media foes alike. We laughed at rather than with the nominee.

Many onlookers were respectful in responding to the gaffes, which included the now infamous "my fellow prisoners" speech and the comment, "I couldn't agree more" in referencing Senator John Murtha's remark about racists in southern Pennsyvania. Some were polite in exercising open-mouthed breathing techniques - smell-fart acting, it's called - and while I chose the lower path of laughing heartily and pointing shamelessly, I think we all understood what these moments meant for McCain.

They stood as just some of the examples why he lost. And along with the more significant missteps - the dos he didn't do and don'ts he did, they added credence to Obama's claim that the Dustbowl State senator was "erratic" and "out of touch".

McCain the martyr

A growing number of conservative pundits and Republican party leaders are clinging to lame excuses and the hopelessly idealistic possibility that Americans handed Obama the executive branch while adding to the Democratic majority in Congress not because the Republican philosophy is skewed, but because of the poor behaviour exhibited by several GOP leaders of late.

This may be true. But the main strategy - or is it a tactic? - in quelling media speculation about the demise of the now immobile conservative movement has been the deployment of the martyrdom card.

While it's a tad late, right-leaning media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and National Review are finally speaking a consistent message: that McCain's defeat is due not to his abandonment of the real maverick principles we once knew and admired, but is instead the result of the late emergence of the economic crisis.

In a piece clearing the Republican ticket of any wrongdoing, Dan Janison of Newsday went so far as to title his McCain defence "Maverick McCain now political martyr".

The Review's Byron York wrote, "What sank McCain's presidential bid was a set of the worst conditions to face any candidate in decades …"

And the Journal said "the biggest challenge of all was the financial crisis, which tanked the economy, (and) was blamed on the Republicans".

First of all, the absence of personal responsibility in these articles does not go unnoticed. None points out that McCain, the self-portrayed maverick of market deregulation, failed to respond to these accusations when deregulation was pegged as the main reason for the "greed and corruption" on Wall Street that contributed to the collapse.

Second, to claim martyrdom is to blame circumstance. While it was unfortunate that McCain's weakest policy position came out as the public's greatest concern, even he argued in his "I've been tested" speeches that it's the job of a good leader to respond appropriately to such challenges.

Third, and probably the worst campaign decision after his VP selection, McCain openly admitted to changing the focus of the race away from the economy and towards Obama's personal associations, his patriotism, his alleged socialism, Wright and Ayers and Khalidi, oh my!

By so doing, he left unchallenged his oft-quoted line, "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should". And he never quelled fears about his economic wisdom as Obama continually referenced McCain's remark just before the market crashed that "the fundamentals of the economy are strong".

Even if we wanted to humour the GOP sympathisers who claim he was quoted out of context - that McCain actually was referencing the American workforce - I would turn to the 240,000 workers who lost their jobs in October, or the 284,000 others who were put out of work in September, or the 1.2 million who are unemployed just this year, according to the Labor Department, and ask them if the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

The fact that the economy emerged as the No.1 issue for voters may not have been ideal for the man whose greatest strength was foreign policy, but McCain botched his chances to right that ship by proving to the American people that he was more than just another self-entitled Washington insider who had no worries of making the mortgages on any of his seven homes.

Leaders lead, losers bleat

A leader demonstrates his strengths. McCain did not. Instead, he played the drama queen in halting his campaign only to prove useless in House negotiations over the $700 billion Wall Street bailout package. He wailed and flailed in response to the "gotcha" media coverage of his ill-tuned vice presidential candidate. And he employed a Swift Boat-esque attack strategy after originally calling for a "respectful campaign" devoid of the "Overheated rhetoric and personal attacks on our opponents (that) distract from the big differences between John McCain's vision for the future of our nation and the Democrats'." (Taken from a March 11 campaign memo.)

The missteps were many, but the economy aside, we saw stark differences between the two candidates in their abilities to react to minor and major crises.

Steady versus frantic

Whereas Senator Barack Obama maintained consistency and cool-handedness in issuing his rebuttals and explanations to what could have been detrimental controversies throughout the race, McCain came off in nearly every speech, town hall meeting and presidential debate as desperate, bitter and arrogantly confident.

Whereas Obama gave an historical speech on racial stigmas following the media frenzy over Reverend Jeremiah Wright, McCain mocked the Democratic nominee for being a skilled orator and celebrity politician.

Whereas Obama picked a vice presidential candidate who would assist him in governing the nation, McCain chose a Joe Six-pack hockey mom who, it was thought, would rally the socially conservative masses but who proved incapable of answering even the simplest of media inquiries - including but definitely not limited to the question: What newspapers and magazines do you read? Sarah Palin's answer: "All of 'em. Any of 'em that have been in front of me over all these years."

Whereas Obama added former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and Warren Buffett to his campaign cabinet of economic consultants, McCain tapped an unlicensed plumber out of Ohio to join him on the campaign trail.

And whereas Obama maintained consistency in his message of change, his policy positions and the criticisms against his opponent, McCain changed his message weekly, if not daily.

From the $150,000 VP shopping spree to the 90 per cent pro-Bush voting record, McCain constantly came up short in adequately countering or even effectively redirecting doubts about his leadership style, his ability to organise a campaign, general intuition and his overall decision-making.

These differences do not constitute martyrdom. They constitute poor judgment.

Admitting personal error

In an effort to embrace the party he so often opposed, McCain changed his tune on torture, supported Bush's policies almost 100 per cent of the time in the two years running up to the election, reversed his stance on off-shore drilling and embraced a position on taxes that he'd earlier opposed, vehemently.

We watched week after week as McCain moved farther and farther to the right, attempting to appeal to the GOP base that even during the nomination was sceptical of the temper-tantrum-prone Maverick. He moved from a non-partisan critic of both parties to a GOP panderer, but try as he did, McCain never quite achieved the backwoods country boy image that proved so successful for Bush. He employed the Rove-ian attack philosophy, but lacked in the Old West image that awarded our now lame duck president a second term.

Wanting to mirror the 2004 Bush strategy, McCain tapped an Alaskan moose hunter to fill the void. But the folksy, ah-shucks sort of "charm" that helped Bush deflect questions and win-over the crowd four years ago served only to intensify the political divide even for those within the GOP.

Palin did "energise the conservative base", but the results from Election Day proved that Americans want more out of a campaign than the partisan us-versus-them culture war philosophy. And they want more from a president who claimed eight years ago that he would reach across the aisle and strive for more than the 50 per cent plus one majority needed to pass legislation.

Bush won legitimately in 2004, and McCain lost legitimately in 2008. It would do the GOP good to ditch the folksy appeal and demagogic style come 2012, and return to the conservative philosophy that made William F. Buckley a national hero: fiscal conservatism and social libertarianism.

Show the American people what it means to move politics aside and put "Country First".