Domke: Economy Beats McCain

That won't be the headline in any newspaper tomorrow, but, in reporting what happened to McCain, it pretty much sums up the story. McCain was leading in polls in mid-September, then the financial crisis struck, the domestic and global economy tanked, and McCain fell behind Obama — never to recover. "What if?" seems a less constructive question when applied to the past than the future, but in any analysis of what went wrong with McCain (picking Palin, suspending his campaign, not doing especially well in debate, etc.) the number one answer has to be James Carville's motto, "It's the economy, stupid." Obama supporters won't like that answer — they like to give full credit to Obama and he did indeed run an extraordinary campaign, but..."what if" the financial crisis hadn't struck? Anyone want to write an alternate sci-fi novel about President John McCain?

Todd Domke is a WBUR political analyst and a columnist for the Boston Globe. He’ll be live blogging throughout the evening.