The blame game

The presidency is the GOP’s best chance of a win in this year’s national elections, it is almost certain that the Democrats will expand their majorities in the House and the Senate. The consequences of a presidential defeat could be dire for the Republicans and not just for the reason that it would see them lose the White House.

McCain is sending every signal that he will not push some buttons the Republican base wants him to. For instance, McCain—who believes in comprehensive immigration reform—isn’t going to demagogue the immigration issue. He also isn’t going to go hard on social issues and on the environment he is going to chart a much greener course. 

The risk is that if McCain loses, the Republican party will learn the wrong lessons from his defeat. Rather than accepting that he limited the Republican’s margin of a defeat in a year where the generic Republican is getting crushed by the generic Democrat, they might blame the defeat on McCain’s failure to tack to the right on immigration, emphasise social issues and the like. If they were then to go down this path, it would be a political disaster for them akin to the Tories 2001 general election campaign.