Palin McCain were ahead in the polls till the financial crisis hit
Since it was a a GOP president they got hit with the fallout
No. McCain & Palin were breifly ahead in Jan 2008, then there were below Obama until briefly in one week of September 2008 - 8-18. But, if the governments attempts to mitigate the crisis in September 2008 were a negative toward McCain were THE BIG negative concerning his campaign, it was not those events but McCain’s reactions to them and statements about them, as well as his record on the issue as the crisis developed from Jan-Feb 2008 on, that led many to conclude that McCain did not recognize the issue as it built up as he sat in the Senate and he did not have a full blown policy about it after it struck. Defending TARP alone was not a policy. He could have roundly critizised the cheap money policy of the Federal reserve, the build up of the sub-prime mortgage lending, the regulators allowance of it & the partiicipation in it by Freddie, Fannie and HUD policy. Yet, I think McCain was either clueless, blind to the crisis as the factor it was, or had no answers for it (or many other economic issues). Of course, McCain may have more wisely let someone else take the GOP mantle in 2008, developed consistent and well thought critique of Obama’s administration from 2009 to 2012, and run instead in 2012. He might have done better than Romney.