I could be mis-remembering 2008 compared to 2012 . . .

[ncgrits]

. . . But it seems to me that although McCain was at least a half bubble off plumb, he still seemed like an authentic human being and when his campaign went off the rails, it felt (in part) like it just got away from him. Not to say he has a hapless victim, but I can remember the WTF?!?! look on his face at some of those rallies. The crazy, campaign-killing crap seemed to happen to McCain (to a degree).

But with Romney, his campaign seems to have gone bat shit crazy not despite him but because of him. All of the WTF?!? moments come from Romney himself. He's the source of the crazy. God knows his supporters are wackos, but this time around it's the candidate himself and his campaign that are generating the cluster-fuck crazy . . . deliberately.

I'm not explaining what I mean very well.

I guess this time around it's trickle-down crazy.

All of this ruminating was prompted by the graphic in this thread.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021331663

I don't know why he's hanging his head. He's not a victim; he did this to himself. . . .

[mucifer]

2. I remember McCain had a ugly mean streak. He just had more of a reason for it than rmoney.

[Joe the Revelator]

3. Towards the end McCain tried to undo some of the ugly....

It was too late, but I believe he tried.

But he also started the socialist meme and introduced Palin.

[tridim]

4. It's all symptomatic of the GOP death spiral.

The entire party is crazy.

[struggle4progress]

5. mebbe

[ncgrits]

6. OMG! I'd cleansed my mind's eye (finally!) !!!! nt

[thevoiceofreason]

7. When you don't have any core beliefs

You can't return to your core message.

[Jennicut]

8. McCain told the fanatics at a rally that Obama was not an "Arab".

Romney made a joke about Obama's birth certificate.

I have plenty of stuff I dislike McCain immensely about on. But he is not on the level of Mittens. Mitt Romney is essentially soulless. Is there even a human in there?

[fugop]

9. Too little too late, for me ...

McCain, for me, ruined any good will I had of him prior to the campaign when he allowed Sarah Palin to bash Obama for pallin' around with terrorists and for every other nasty insinuation that he totally failed to stamp out long before he finally tried to muzzle this crazy lady's rant. I think he had to do the above moment in order to try to shift the perception that theirs was just a nasty, ugly campaign. He was trying to regain some political good will. But for me, too little, too late.

I always thought that if he's just managed to show some class early on (if he'd try to tamp down the Muslim, birth certificate, Kenya garbage early on), he might have had a more respectable showing. But frankly, he showed himself to be as desperate for the presidency as Romney. Politically craven, indeed.