A major miss-step in our history, that had helped take us to the brink?

 this is a re-post form another now closed board.

While contemplating our current problems as a country, I sometimes reflect on the Might Have Beens, where we as a nation took the wrong turns which brought us here.

One of the regrets I have for our nation is that McCain did not win the Republican primaries in 2000.
McCain won the New Hampshire primary in a landslide, and nearly upended the coronation of Bush II. Bush's adoption of a negative smear campaign was the only thing that saved him in South Carolina.
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I consider this a tragedy for the country. Bush, while a well-meaning man, was a real lightweight both mentally and in his character, and was dominated by his political advisor Karl Rove, and VP Cheney for the first 6 years of his presidency. McCain had character in spades, and rejected the divisiveness that Rove and Cheney urged on Bush II. Overall, I thought McCain would have been a far better president. But there were specific disasters, that are much less of a judgement call than this, which Bush's win over McCain lead to.

One was 9-11. I doubt that a more security focussed Prez could have prevented 9-11, but there is a chance.

Of more certainty, the Bush presidency produced four disasters for this country, which McCain would have avoided:

* Iraq War
* torture and abandonment of due process
* Extreme disconnect between Military/Security agencies, and the populace
* Massive budget deficits

As a military strategist, I am fairly confident that McCain would not have undertaken a 2nd discretionary war (Iraq), when the first and necessary war (Al Qaida) had not yet been won.
McCain led the effort to overturn the torture program of the Bush admin, so he would not have
supported the torture, renditions, incommunicado detentions, etc that Bush adopted from the world's dictatorships.

McCain would not have called upon Americans to go out shopping, when their service members
were at war. Our service people were always stunned when they rotated home, and it was like there was no war. This should have started with 9-11. Rather than a paternalistic "I will do everything possible to never let this happen again" (IE, torture, violate civil rights, etc), McCain would have honored the dead as HEROES, not VICTIMS! A nation at war, fighting for the Enlightenment values of Human Rights, Religious Tolerance, and Democracy would have been far more resistant to the anti-military/security conspiracy theories of the Truthers, and of the anti-muslim religious bigotry.

As the leading deficit hawk in congress, McCain would not have already emptied our bank account before the Great Recession hit.

Bush gets the blame for the Great Recession, unjustifiably. This was actually a Bush strength, and the best thing he did in his presidency. He created the bank rescue fund, and prevented a second Great Depression. McCain may have mismanaged this recession, and turned it into a depression -- but I don't have reason to think that he would have been less competent than Bush, so this is not a reasonable expectation from a McCain win.

So, the four greatest disasters of the Bush presidency would have been avoided, with no obvious downsides, if the right man had carried the day.

Instead, the pursuit of negative politics, and smearing one's opponents, was pretty much enshrined as the way to win elections!

So -- was this one of the major national missteps on the way to our current climate of partisan hostility and non-communication? Or am I totally misjudging what happened in 2000 and its consequences?