He at least stood up during elections and told people Obama was not a Muslim terrorist. Can you imagine Trump doing the same at his rallies?
Republicans had no shot in 2008, because the horrors painted on Obama in 2016 for failure of DNC policy, were objectively happening during the economic fall in 2008 and RNC was blamed (see rise of tea party). He needed to do be bold and take risks, but even then... he corrected his supporters that were being lied to. He got as extreme as pulling Palin out of a hat, but never got close to the 'founder of ISIS' bullshit that dominated elections this time.