I’m very glad he did what he did. If he hadn’t been gracious, if he’d left any impression that he harbored any resentment of any kind whatsoever, I think it would have fed the anger of those who would, oh I don’t know, boo and shout out rude comments during one’s concession speech. McCain spent the last month building up the hate and fear against Obama, if he’d left that resentment out there without reaching out graciously as he did, it could have been the catalyst for violence (on some scale).
Two thoughts…one is if he’d conducted himself this way in the campaign, he might have had a better shot at winning…I suspect with the shifting of the electorate to a younger, more liberal mindset, that kind of negativity that has won elections in the past was just a turnoff. In fact, negative campaigning is ALWAYS a turnoff, that’s why it was invented…to suppress voter turnout (if you have fewer people voting, you have fewer people to convince). And in most elections it’s a tit for tat, and most people can only choose either to reject both candidates, or to pick the lesser of two evils. This time, McCain made the big mistake of not realizing that he was running against someone who had vowed to rise above it (and meant it).
Second observation, a lot of people are going to talk about how this was more like the “old” McCain, which is true, but, and not to kick a man when he’s down, it seems from this article he may have never really been all that sincere in his “maverickiness”.