To: i-node who wrote (430085 ) 10/25/2008 12:37:30 PM From: tejek Respond to I know that should McCain lose on 4 November that you will complain bitterly that the media caused his loss. In the Obama tradition, let me preempt those comments by pointing out the truth......that McCain ran a bad campaign in FLA and elsewhere:"Mr. McCain’s advisers decided to focus on other states, limiting spending in a very expensive state. His chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, said he was not surprised to see things get tight, particularly as the housing market collapsed here, putting the economy front and center. “We always suspected that would happen,” he said. “It was a strategic error on their part,” said Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe. Here as in much of the country, there have been strains between the local Republican organization and the McCain campaign about how to run in the state. Until Thursday, Mr. Crist, a Republican whom Mr. McCain said he had considered for the vice-presidential slot on the ticket, kept what appeared to be a definite distance from the McCain campaign, and made remarks — including one disputing Mr. McCain’s contention that the voting process here was subject to fraud — that were clearly unhelpful to Mr. McCain.Still, Mr. Crist’s associates said he had been irked that after everything he had done for Mr. McCain — many Republicans think he would not have won Florida, and thus the nomination, without the last-minute endorsement of Mr. Crist — the McCain campaign, at the last minute, had refused to broadcast a seven-minute video introduction he had prepared for the convention. Some leaders said they had been stymied in their efforts to get help from the McCain campaign, though they said that was now beginning to change. nytimes.com
