Sorry to toot my own prescience, but no one else will do it for me. Last February, when Democratic primary fires still burned brightly, there was a lot of concern among Democrats that McCain would prove to be a formidable candidate because of his experience, military record, media popularity, reputation as a straight-shooter, and appeal among independents. I wanted to write about McCain's chances, but I concluded that attempting to predict the relative importance to voters of experience vs. change, national security vs. economy, straight-shooting vs. smooth-talking, etc. was wild guesswork. Instead, I decided to focus on McCain's track record as campaigner. In one of my very first political blog posts, called Overestimating McCain, I wrote that McCain's primary campaign had been nearly crushed by lackluster fundraising, poor planning, fiscal mismanagement, and infighting and that McCain was so out of touch with campaign operations that he was "started and enraged" to he learn that his campaign had run out of money. Moreover, the sagging fortunes of his campaign eventually reversed only because of positive news from Iraq and the titanic implosion of rival Rudy Giuliani's campaign rather than because of any clever tactical changes on McCain's part. I also contrasted the Republican cakewalk of a primary with the fiercely competitive Democratic primary, in which both of the main candidates smashed fundraising records and drew record numbers of voters.

Ignoring the personal attributes that the pundits used to measure McCain's chances, I proposed an alternative thesis: "a well-run primary campaign augurs a well-run general election campaign, and the inverse, a poorly-run primary campaign augurs a poorly-run general election campaign." As McCain's media popularity and perceptions of his honesty veered wildly, as unpredictable events changed voters' priorities, as independents swayed to and fro, one factor has remained constant: John McCain ran an unfocused, cash poor, badly planned, bitterly divided campaign. Obama, by contrast, ran an organized, disciplined, creative, well-funded, brilliant campaign, just as he did in the primary. The next time I attempt to gauge a candidate's electability, I know where to look.