Obama Didn't Beat McCain

Obama didn't win because we did a poor job as conservatives, or Republicans; the main mistake we made was selecting John McCain as the candidate. Hear me out: I love the guy, but he is NOT, and has never been, a conservative. An out-and-out liberal ran against a 'moderate' Republican --- to replace what the public considers a 'moderate' Republican. So no matter how we sliced it or spun it, the public's perception was that they were facing four more years of Bush.

THAT'S where Obama won. He didn't beat McCain, because he really wasn't running against McCain.

Obama beat Bush, feeding on the eight years of misery fed to the Left by the media... convincing them what a dunderhead, idiot and next-Hitler that Bush was.

Up against all of that, the only way for us to win was to nominate a diehard conservative, because THAT'S the candidate who would best have presented an "I'm not Bush" face of Republicanism to the voters. And we had poor choices from which to select (as far as the general public is concerned) --- one man who was too religious (Huckabee), one who had a weird religion (Romney), one who looked asleep during campaign speeches (Thompson).

Look back to the primaries: Republicans turned out in small groups to nominate a candidate, whereas Democrats turned out in DROVES to nominate theirs. We wound up with the 'default' candidate, and we lost; they wound up with a candidate who fought the Clinton machine for months on end, and he winds up on top... because all of his negatives (that could be used) were defeated during the primary season. Our candidate really didn't have much of a fight at all.

Let's not make the same mistake again. We can talk about our philosophies of smaller government and lower taxes, but the odds of our retaking the Senate in 2010 are infinitesimally small, as we will again be defending more open seats than the Democrats... meaning that we have to win not only our own, but also theirs, and that's a monumental and costly undertaking, since the Democrats have only to keep the status quo ante.

There's a great post, with some very good advice, here:
http://www.redstate.com/diaries/redstate/2008/nov/05/obama-administration-survival-guide/