John McCain lost the election due to mistakes that are the hallmarks of failed High School Student Council Elections. These are four of the lessons that John McCain should have remembered from High School:

1: The Homecoming Queen is rarely a good candidate: high school kids are smart enough to realize that candidates whose main appeal is their image usually have neither the ability nor the desire to serve their community.  In choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain assumed that her image would outweigh her lack of substance. It didn’t.

2: Avoid brown-nosing the Administration: in high school, the candidate who publicly tows the Principal’s line at the students’ expense is destined to fail. By voting with President Bush against the interests of the American people 95% of the time, John McCain made just such an alignment.

3: Regular Kids resent Rich Kids and their followers: High School kids have little respect for rich kids. So when a rich kid tries to “get in” with the regular kids with the help of one of his followers, they both become social pariahs. In recruiting “Joe the Plumber” as his mascot, John McCain assumed that Joe would bolster his popularity with the middle class.

4: Don’t Play Dirty: playing dirty usually backfires and, additionally, makes a person look bad (worse) in the community. John McCain’s attempts to tie Barack Obama to terrorists, communists, extremists, and elitists had just that effect.