It’s hard to know whether it was the real John McCain who lost or whether the person Barack Obama defeated was a fake, created to motivate the narrow slice of the electorate mistakenly thought to be the Republican “base” (see Palin, “country first”, Joe the Plumber).
Obama might have won in any case, but the McCain campaign was an amateur affair, unable to settle on a consistent presentation of the candidate’s message or identity. At times (e.g., the proposal to cancel a debate, put the campaign on hold, and race theatrically back to Washington), he appeared foolish.
McCain started the campaign as an admired and independent-minded combination of war hero and experienced legislator, weighed down by the unpopularity of his party and the president. By the time the campaign was over, it was not George Bush but McCain himself who had been rejected.
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