SURPRISE QUIZ! What do McCain's, Romney's and Trump's presidential campaigns have in common?
McCain was doing well in the polls, as long as the dominating election-topic was national security. Then, in the midst of election season in summer 2008, the topic switched from national security to economy.
The election became a referendum on GWB: Bush-surrogate McCain vs anybody-but-Bush
Romney was doing okay in the primaries. The other candidates bounced up and down (in a "flavor-of-the-week" freak-show), but he always kept a solid 25%. But he was just so bland and stiff and boring and uninspiring. It became clear after a while that he was the kind of guy who would stick around in the primaries until the very end. The GOP was searching for a candidate with more fire and charisma. They were searching for anybody-but-Romney.
But by the end of the primaries, Romney was the only not-horrible guy in the race, so they compromised on him.
Trump was doing great in the primaries. He's provocative, he's charismatic, he gets the people going. He's very popular inside the Teaparty-echo-chamber that the GOP has built. But it has also turned out that he has a horrible character and doesn't have the necessary skills and job-experience to be President.
The GOP knows that running candidate Trump would lead to election-losses. And this is how the election got the topic anybody-but-Trump.
Anybody-but-McCain, anybody-but-Romney, anybody-but-Trump...
What does it say about the Republican Party, in terms of psychology and political science, that their last three presidential candidates were associated with negativity and rejection?
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