The Impossible Task and the Incompetent Candidate

Ross Douthat brings to our attention a monologue by Rush Limbaugh, and it’s well worth reading. I would suggest that you go read the whole thing along with Ross’ response, but I’m not a cruel man, so I’ll excerpt the part that I want to talk about here.

Now, I wish to ask all of you influential pseudointellectual conservative media types who have also abandoned McCain and want to go vote for Obama (and you know who you are without my having to mention your name) what happened to your precious theory? What the hell happened to your theory that only John McCain could enlarge this party, that we had to get moderates and independents? How the hell is it that moderate Republicans are fleeing their own party and we are not attracting other moderates and independents?

Ross says the whole speech – an attempt to shift blame for McCain’s coming defeat away from mouth breathing troglodytes like Limbaugh and onto those remaining moderate conservatives who have decided to vote for Obama. The problem with this quote in particular (along with the piece as a whole) is that it doesn’t make any sense. Ross argues that the whole thing makes a kind of internal sense if you squint hard and don’t think about it too much, but I’m not sure about that.

What Limbaugh is saying here is just patently absurd. Part of what more realistic conservatives were saying when they argued that McCain – and only McCain – even had a chance of catching up to Obama was that McCain would have to appeal to independents and conservative Democrats. This is true. McCain was the only person who was running for the Republican nomination that even had a shot. And he proceeded to take that shot and throw it into the deepest, darkest well he could. For this, Limbaugh sees the end of moderation.

Limbaugh asks, “How the hell is it that moderate Republicans are fleeing their own party and we are not attracting other moderates and independents?” Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that McCain never made any effort to attract those people? McCain was always presented with an impossible task: He is a deeply unpopular figure among the Republican base, not a group known for the embrace of unpopular heterodoxies. He had to make sure that those people were with him first and foremost. Without the hardcore 28%, there’s no there there. McCain always had to run hard right to appeal to those people. The whole joke of Palin was that she was supposed to be the bone that would satiate them so he could get down to the important business of convincing moderates and independents not to notice the slavering horde behind the podium.

These were always going to be impossible balls to keep juggling. The two groups are just two far apart for a politician running in an inherently hostile environment, from the incumbent party of one of the most unpopular presidents ever. McCain – and Republicans in general – were always given an almost impossible task. What no one could have predicted was just how truly, epically McCain would fail at it. McCain 2008 is going to go down in history as being one of the most ineptly run major party campaigns ever. People will study it for years to come, looking for clues in what not to do.