McCain Reportedly To Keep Gramm As Adviser And Surrogate

You have to seriously wonder about Republican presumptive Presidential candidate Senator John McCain’s grasp of political imagery and desire to win over not just swing voters but Americans who are losing their homes, lost their jobs, and who can barely afford to fill up their gas tanks: according to columnist Robert Novak, McCain plans to keep former Senator Phil aka “mental recession” Gramm on as not just a campaign adviser but a campaign surrogate.

Unless you’ve been on Mars, Gramm is the former Senator who sparked not just a firestorm of denunciations but a hailstone storm of derision — and comedian and other joke punchlines — by saying the United States was merely suffering from a “mental recession” and that financially beset Americans were “a nation of whiners.” Once the firestorm broke, Gramm tried to clarify the statement as many politicos do, by saying he didn’t mean it meant what it sounded like he meant — which all but a recently removed gallbladder in a jar in at Mercy Hospital in San Diego know he meant.

But he insisted he stood by the statements…giving America the most vivid example yet of the formal end of the pretext of “compassionate conservatism.”

He claimed it was only talking about American’s political leadership. Which still didn’t explain what he meant by a mental recession. This was followed by some conservative talk show hosts saying, by golly, Gramm IS misunderstood and IS right — the economy really IS sound. (You can’t say “sound as a dollar” anymore because the dollar isn’t sound.) These hosts know the American economy is sound because they’ve seen this as they ride in their chauffeured limos and fly their private jets to speaking gigs.

McCain’s action as reported by Novak shows that he prizes political and personal loyalty, since Gramm is a longtime friend and close adviser That’s laudable enough.

But keeping Gramm on as a high-profile adviser will allow the Demmies to run quotes of Gramm’s comments in ads between now and the election as an example of someone who’ll be close to a President John McCain in a policy-making capacity.

Needless to say, the Obama campaign jumped on the news:

Senator McCain’s economic plan gives nearly $4 billion in tax breaks to the oil companies but doesn’t provide any tax relief to more than 100 million middle-class families. But that shouldn’t come as a surprise since today we learned that Phil Gramm will continue to advise Senator McCain on economic policy despite calling Americans struggling in this economy ‘whiners,’”.

Novak’s column frames this as a case of two people patching up a relationship.

The problem for the McCain campaign: most voters won’t perceive this election as an extended episode of The View, with recriminations, gaffes, ending in tearful apologies and people making up.

At a time when many Americans need to take out a loan to fill their gas tanks but can’t because they can’t get a loan on their house because their house is being foreclosed-on and their bank that would give them the loan is on a list of endangered banks, a surrogate and adviser who made a statement calling them “whiners” won’t be a stellar asset. As an adviser or a CREDIBLE on-camera surrogate.

It certainly sounds as if Christmas has come early this year for the Democrats.

Even though Santa can’t say “ho, ho, ho” anymore without being accused of slurring women, he can and has given Democrats the gift that most assuredly will keep on giving.