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In Need of a New Vision

McCain Defeat Divides Republicans

By Cordula Meyer in Phoenix, Arizona

Gracious in defeat, John McCain praised Barack Obama and earned boos from his own supporters. It is clear that the Republicans need a new vision after a campaign that has left them divided and exhausted.

The end came very quickly. At 9.15 p.m. local time John McCain walked onto the stage in the garden of the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona, to concede defeat. It was the end of a decade-long struggle for the presidency, and he had tears in his eyes. But in defeat McCain regained his stature as a statesman. He was quick to congratulate Obama once he realized he had lost, and to stress how much both he and Obama loved America.

The usually so sanguine McCain spoke emotionally about racism and racial segregation, "injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation." Obama had "achieved a great thing for himself and for his country,” he said. And then he urged his supporters to cooperate with Obama in America's interest. His face looked almost pained at the boos from the crowd after he congratulated Obama and offered him his support.

The role of statesman suits McCain best. He didn't look like a man who had to struggle to voice his congratulations for Obama. The Arizona night sky was swept by blue and yellow laser beams as McCain faced the crowd flanked by his wife Cindy and his running mate, Sarah Palin.

At Peace With Himself

He looked like a man at peace with himself despite his defeat. There was no hint of the John McCain who last week tried to whip up the crowd into "Joe the Plumber" chants or who had voters bombarded with telephone calls about Obama's supposedly dubious past.

For his supporters, the transition from McCain the campaigner who doesn't mind a bit of mud-slinging to McCain the gentleman may have been a little too abrupt.

Lisa Ulrich, a Republican supporter, wiped the tears from her eyes as she stood in the crowd. "I'm so afraid," she said.

What of? "What Obama stands for: abortion. I have to think of our soldiers who fought so hard and who now died in vain because Obama wants to withdraw them." The 42-year-old Republican works for a TV station in Phoenix. "Foreign governments trained Obama to become president here and then to damage America," she says. Kim Owens, a campaign worker, said the election had been lost because of a lack of donations and "media prejudice."

Real estate agent Jack London stared sadly into his beer glass in the luxurious hotel lobby. He thinks the party should shift back to the right after McCain, but added that he would support Obama nevertheless. "The main thing is that something gets moving in government, even if it goes in a direction I don't like," he said.

McCain had urged his supporters to carry on fighting to the very end. Opinion polls showing a big lead for Obama were wrong, he declared. "We're catching up," he insisted. That's why he took the highly unusual step of making a 36-hour dash through seven states right up until polling stations closed.

It didn't help him. Neither did McCain's superstitious decision to await the election outcome in the Biltmore, the hotel where he celebrated his Super Tuesday triumph in the primaries in February 2008, where he celebrated his marriage to Cindy and where he embarked on his political career 28 years ago.

But McCain's supporters hadn't been in a mood for celebration even when they arrived at the Biltmore, a historical luxury resort on the outskirts of Phoenix. Everyone seemed to be hoping for a miracle they didn't believe in. There were rumors of exit polls showing McCain with a tiny lead. "I'd interpret that as an expression of hope," said William Behrens, a former honorary German consul in Phoenix who was at the party.

In the ballroom Hank Williams Junior played country music and the big video screens only showed the states McCain had won. The lack of information prompted the Republicans to keep checking their Blackberries or to congregate around televisions in the hotel bars. Then, shortly before 8 p.m., came the realization. McCain wasn't going to win. Pennsylvania, lost by a wide margin. Then Ohio: lost. And Obama was ahead in Virginia.

There was no plausible way McCain could win. That was the end. No one wanted to acknowledge it, but the stony expressions on the ladies in their evening dresses and on the men holding their wineglasses said it all. When CNN called the election for Obama shortly after 8 p.m., McCain's supporters responded with shrugs rather than anger.

Who is to Blame for the Debacle?

But the Republicans have every reason to conduct a close self-examination. This election is more than a departure from the politics of George W. Bush. The usual promises of tax cuts and less government failed to score with voters this time around.

The Americans are sick of the Republican Party in its current state. And the Republicans don't know how to react to that. Does Sarah Palin, deeply controversial even in her own party, really represent its future as she herself would evidently like to believe? Yesterday she stayed on in the Biltmore and spoke to supporters long after McCain had left.

It's clear that Palin marks a fault line between two wings of the party that Ronald Reagan united in 1980: the social conservatives opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage on the one hand and on the other the wealthy business conservatives who are primarily interested in low taxes and deregulation. The latter feel virtually cast out by Palin.

In the coming days the Republicans will start debating who's to blame for the debacle. Will it be enough to return to old Republican principles of small government and tough spending cuts, as Congressman Jeff Flake from Arizona argues? Or will the party have to reinvent itself, as some conservative strategists are suggesting?

John McCain's campaign at times seemed to lack a strategy. But his maverick status meant he was probably the best candidate because it allowed him to virtually run against his own party. His defeat will prompt the Republicans to think about the mistakes of the Bush era.

No one was as unpopular as the outgoing president. Against this background Bush's words to McCain on the telephone on Tuesday night seemed almost cynical: "You did your best," he said.