Game Change: The 2008 Election
2024 has been an election unlike any other, but I thought it would be fun to discuss 2008, an equally unique/crazy election cycle. Every presidential contest has its twists and turns, each consequential to some degree. But the 2008 election was a campaign defined by big events, startling revelations, and unexpected episodes that again and again threatened to turn everything on its head.
The Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Bill Clinton's outbursts in South Carolina. Allegations about troubles in the McCain marriage. The epic crisis of the global financial system. The mesmerizing, confounding, deeply polarizing emergence of Sarah Palin, her public travails and private nightmares, and the unprecedented steps the McCain team took to cope with their superstar. All developments so extravagant and dramatic that they seemed like elements borrowed from a Hollywood screenplay.
2008 was a battle in which the candidates were celebrities, larger-than-life characters who crashed together to create a story uncommonly emotional for politics; a drama rich and captivating and drenched in modern complexities surrounding race, gender, class, religion, sex, and age.
A multimedia spectacle that unspooled 24/7 on the Web, cable television, the late night talk shows, and Saturday Night Live. The drama played out against a backdrop that was itself vividly cinematic; a country at war, an economy on the brink, and an electorate swept up, regardless of party, in a passionate yearning for transformation.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | September 3, 2024 2:17 AM
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No matter who ran, the Republicans were not going to win in 2008.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | August 30, 2024 2:14 AM
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The first election where social media played a major role.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | August 30, 2024 2:18 AM
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Sarah Palin was a great actress
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | August 30, 2024 2:20 AM
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SNL played a major role in the outcome, too
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | August 30, 2024 2:31 AM
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Obama-the definition of cool-as-fuck.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | August 30, 2024 4:00 AM
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The real issue was the economic crisis and it was obvious who, between Obama and McCain, was capable of handling what could have turned into a second Great Depression. Fault the way Obama handled it but the government got paid a lot of that money back and it’s clear that John McCain would have fucked it up even more.
Bush had not only infuriated the left, he’d alienated the fiscal conservatives in his own party with his runaway deficit spending. There was no way an establishment candidate was going to win the nascent Tea Party, and John McCain wasn’t enough of a maverick, despite his branding.
People could still remember the boom times of the late Clinton administration and Obama brought that same youthful, cool energy. It was his time and the reason why he was able to snatch the nomination away from Hillary.
The world would have been a different place if she’d gotten the nomination and I believe she could have beat McCain but I’m not sure she would have handled the bailout as well as Obama did.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | August 30, 2024 4:28 AM
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The establishment Democrats hated the Clintons. They felt they were entitled and vicious.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | August 30, 2024 2:46 PM
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The GOP rats still tried. In the months leading up to summer, they pushed gas prices higher than ever, so much so that I could only afford to go canvassing in another state a couple tims.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | August 30, 2024 2:53 PM
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remember Joe the Plumber?
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | August 30, 2024 2:55 PM
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Good recap of the runup to the 2008 election
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | August 30, 2024 2:58 PM
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I was a poll worker for that presidential election. It was honestly exciting to see people coming in so eager to vote. A couple of them had something wrong where they weren’t on the books to vote there but a neighborhood judge was on duty nearby to certify them to vote (I don’t remember the issues but they weren’t voting fraudulently.) . I remember one guy coming in waving his waiver; he was so excited.
I got a little teary eyed watching one elderly black couple come in to vote; all I could think of was what racism they must’ve faced in their early lives and here they were to vote a black man into office as president (I’m assuming they were voting for Obama but of course I didn’t ask.)
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | August 30, 2024 6:20 PM
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I always loved the 2008 Year in Review
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | September 2, 2024 7:39 PM
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I can see Russia from my house!
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | September 3, 2024 2:17 AM
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