Two lessons of 2008

The conventional wisdom tends to enshrine certain "lessons" from each election cycle. Here are two that I hope get remembered:

1. Pick a qualified running mate. It's difficult to tell if the choice of Sarah Palin actually hurt John McCain -- despite her bad poll numbers, he did about as well as political science models expect. But for the sake of the country, I hope future nominees of both parties don't take risks like that in the future.

2. Don't smear your political opponents. After Michelle Bachmann suggested that Barack Obama and liberal members of Congress are anti-American, more than one million dollars in campaign donations poured into her opponent's campaign, making the race competitive. Though Bachmann ultimately pulled out a narrow victory, the possibility of a flood of online dollars is going to make incumbents nationwide think twice about mouthing off.

Comments

[David]

It would be nice if Presdential candidates picked qualified running mates and if candidates didn't smear their opponents. However, I cannot agree that these are electoral mistakes.

Dan Quayle and Spiro Agnew didn't stop their running mates from winning comfortable victories. And, although Palin may have hurt McCain more as much as she helped him, I don't think McCain would have done any better running with Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney.

Most campaigning is negative, because that's what works. In the Minnesota Senate race, incumbant Norm Coleman ran a purely postitive race and wound up in a dead heat with Al Franken.