Where Did John McCain Go Wrong?

Everyone's seems to be adding their two cents about why McCain lost, so I'll go ahead and throw mine in as well.

Many people think John McCain lost because this was an anyone but a Republican election. To some extent, that's probably true. Throw in the fact that people got the chance to vote for an historic, charismatic candidate and I'm sure both of those things made a big impact. Those things are only factors though, because John McCain ran trying to out populist a real populist.

Most people dislike, distrust, or even downright hate the government. Instead of arguing with Obama about who was going to use the government to help people more, he should have differentiated himself by telling people how he was going to help them by heading to Washington and dismantling the government piece by piece. In the beginning, he kind of halfheartedly did that, but after the economy became such a big issue I guess he figured people didn't want to hear that and started to demonize Wall Street. A better route would have been to demonize the government, who really was to blame. McCain should have flooded the airwaves with clips from this video showing democrats talking about how safe and secure Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were.

The next Republican to win the presidency will be one who is not afraid to underline the basic ideological differences between conservatives and liberals.