To be clear, I don’t think that denying that John McCain’s political problems are a result of poor political tactics is equivalent to saying he’s a “victim of circumstances.” He’s a victim of the dual facts that George W. Bush has made the Republican Party extremely unpopular, and of the fact that the national economy has been heading downhill all year.
But neither of those are just vague “circumstances” or bad luck they largely follow from the fact that policies McCain has embraced have had bad consequences. But to me the main difference between 2004 and 2008 isn’t that Bush’s campaign was run by evil geniuses and McCain’s is run by inept fools, the difference is that actual conditions got worse.
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