As you can see from the charts below, McCain was the underdog from wire to wire. Following George Bush was a mugs game, and I’m frankly surprised that someone with McCain’s political instincts undertook such foolishness. Maybe he was hoping to line up against Hilary? Anyway, after a momentary glimpse of 50/50 upon wrapping up the nomination, an Obama win was never really in question.
The Obama/Romney chart is altogether different. The generic Republican had a chance for a while, but you can see that the GOP primary really took a toll on Romney. Once Obama put away the rope-adope, and clicked into campaign mode, he opened a huge lead on Romney. A lead so wide that when Romney locked down the nomination, it registered as a blip among the IEM bettors.
