John McCain received 5 million fewer votes than George Bush did in 2004. Those votes were not coming out yesterday if Romney was the candidate. As hard as it is to accept, John McCain had, of all the GOP hopefuls this cycle, the best chance to win. The only other posibilty IMO was Fred Thompson, and he had no fire in the belly for the task. What went wrong? Ask those 5 million missing voters.
Yup - 5 mil less votes than Bush in ‘04. This was a referendum on Bush. Lots of people who voted Bush switched sides or sat out. My sister and mom both liked Bush but fell for the change mantra and thought we needed Obama because he was fresh. I’m sure this happened all over.