Why Did McCain Lose? Here are 10 reasons.

1. Eight years of one party control of the White House. Since 1952, only once has a party extended control of the executive branch beyond eight years, when George H. W. Bush succeeded eight years of Ronald Reagan.  The electorate's desire for "change" comes in eight years intervals when it comes to the presidency.
2. Presidents Bush's communication ineptness.  This only compounds reason #1. Immense credit is due to George W. Bush for keeping the homeland safe following the 9/11 attack. After all, protection of its citizens is the main reason for the existence of government. However, President Bush exhibited a profound communication deficiency, especially during his second term. He failed to effectively communicate the driving principles behind his worthwhile policies - and many of his economic policies were very worthwhile. He equally failed to better explain his administration's blunders, whether real or alleged. This made Bush wholly unpopular and far too easy to hang around McCain's neck.
3. Financial crisis.  To be clear, it may have been likelier for the Vatican to adopt the Origin of Species as core reading for its faithful than for an incumbent party to overcome the concussive effect of the mid-September financial market upheaval that descended upon the country.  It may seem a distant memory, but McCain was leading in many polls prior to the crisis. 
   
4. Failure to assign proper blame to the Democrats for the financial crisis.  Chris Dodd and Barney Frank and other democrats evaded much deserved criticism.  They were in bed with and actively protected the disastrous policies of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Why were they able to evade?  The mainstream media, totally in the tank for Obama, preferred to join, nay lead, the anti-Republican chorus and McCain and his surrogates did not figure out a way to succinctly explain Democrat culpability to the nation.  
5. Right wing of the Republican Party was not politically smart.  Registered Democrats far outnumber registered Republicans.  This advantage is true in the so-called battleground states.  There is absolutely no way that, given the Bush drag factor, McCain could simultaneously please the outer 10% right wing of the party (the "social conservatives") and still convince sufficient Independents and moderate Democrats to vote Republican.   Whether or not one sympathizes with the social policies of the outer 10% is not the point.  The point is that, from a political astuteness point of view, they just need to grow up.  To win, McCain should have felt free to move to center, and even slightly left of center, to garner the votes he needed.  
6. McCain did not connect the Obama blemish dots. Wright, Ayers, Rezco are not isolated Obama encounters. Questioning Obama's judgement on this was a mistake. There was no error in judgement.  Despite his denials, Obama knew perfectly well who these individuals were and chose to associate with them.  Add to the list Frank Marshall Davis and Obama's affiliation with ACORN.  McCain simply failed to look into the camera and clearly explain Obama's disturbing closeness to Wright and Ayers, two radicals who have an axe to grind with the very essence of what makes this country great. This should have been done early in the campaign.
7. On foreign policy, insisting that Obama is naive.  Big mistake here.  There is nothing naive about what he plans to do. His desire to sit down and talk with Ahmadinejan, Chavez, Castro and other unsavory, if not criminal, leaders does not, repeat not, stem from naivete.  He knows who these people are, and frankly does not view them in the negative light that the adjective naive suggests.  Dangerous is the proper description. My belief is that Obama romanticizes Castro (as many liberals do), thinks Chavez has been demonized by Bush (many Hollywood types hold this view), and he thinks that the whacko from Iran will somehow fall under his spell.  Newsflash! - I don't think that Ahmadinejan fully buys into the Oprah "he's the One" rapture.
8. Fundraising.  This is a no-brainer.  Obama raised $670 Million to McCain's $350 Million. He did this by breaking his pledge to accept public funding, mumbling something about "raising, spending, and winning with big cash in order to gain power to then clean up the system".  I get it and so should you. This means that now that Obama is in power he will try to slam the door on anyone that dares raise big cash in 2012 to defeat him. "Let's close the loophole after I slip through it".  Nice touch. More on the "slammin' the door shut" tune when Warren Buffet is discussed in a future posting.
9. McCain should have placed greater focus on the political freedom tie to economic freedom.  This relationship will be the guiding theme of Freedom Watchtower. For now, I will just say that political freedom is inexorably linked with economic freedom.  Simply said, the more economic freedom we have, the more political freedom we will enjoy.  We lose economic freedom in direct proportion to the siphoning by government of our hard-earned dollars.  McCain improved in his messaging during the final two weeks of the campaign when he found his Joe the Plumber voice.  Truth is, many people sniffed out Obama's "spread the wealth around" ideology several months ago and the McCain campaign should have pounced on and hammered this all summer long. 
10. McCain did not upbraid Obama on his class warfare rhetoric.  This is among the most disturbing aspects of Obama's leftist hymnbook.  It pits one group of American against another group based on their 1040s.  So much for "unity".  Class warfare is dangerous and can exert major damage on the nation as we know it.  McCain should have calmly but tersely scolded Obama for this and made it a staple of his message.  Americans would have caught on.  McCain could have followed the chastise with an explanation to the people that he will be especially vigilant in making sure that all Americans enjoy equal opportunity and that he will not punish success as a matter of policy, or otherwise.