Gaffe Alert!
McCain doesn't need enemies. He has friends.
This was supposed to be John McCain's week to re-re-launch his campaign, this time with a tightly focused message about the economy and how he plans to fix it. He had a nicely staged debut in Denver, even if the experts quickly demanded to know how he could preserve George Bush's tax cuts, stay in Iraq and yet balance the federal budget by 2013. Details, details! Still, McCain was back in the game.
Then a one-man thundercloud named Phil Gramm rained on McCain's Main Street parade.
In one of the more boneheaded remarks in recent presidential politics (and Gramm has uttered others) the former Texas senator declared that we are in the midst of a "mental recession" and that we have "sort of become a nation of whiners."
This was so asinine as to make Jesse Jackson Sr. (and his live-microphone gaffe about cutting off Barack Obama's ... accessories) sound like Plato.
McCain, polls show, is struggling to persuade voters—even in his own party—that Republicans deserve to retain stewardship of the economy. Obama and the Democrats are way ahead in polls on questions related to jobs, health care, gas prices, business regulation, the mortgage mess—you name it.
At a time of $4-a-gallon gasoline (or more), of falling home prices in most American cities, of skyrocketing food costs and steadily rising unemployment rates, dismissing worried American voters as whining, depressed basket cases is, well, insane.
Gramm is an economist—at least he has a Ph.D. in the field—but nothing proves the stupidity of the "dismal science" more than his comments in an interview with The Washington Times. Technically, a "recession" is two straight quarters of negative growth; so technically, we may in fact not be in a recession. Or we might, but don't yet know it.
Either way, Gramm missed the point.
The other lesson he missed is the one that tells rich Republicans who represent banks that they should keep their mouths shut. Evidently, Gramm long since lost whatever political fingertips he used to have when he was a conservative GOP senator from Texas.
Ironically, Gramm initially sold himself as an aw-shucks regular guy. He was always talking about his friend "Dickie Flatt," a small-town small businessman Gramm claimed to be representing—literally and metaphorically—in Washington.
But Gramm, long since out of government, has turned his expertise over to the banks and banking industry he works for. He was a proponent of the kind of anti-regulation philosophy that many observers think contributed to the current mortgage crisis.
Senator McCain, cringing, immediately distanced himself from Gramm and his comments. The two men have been friends and allies for more than a quarter century. In 1988, when Gramm ran an abortive campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, McCain was at his side.
To prove his regular-guy street cred, Gramm used to brag about how he had flunked grades in elementary school. McCain must've been remembering that bit of braggadocio today, as he went to great lengths to reassure voters that he knew their pain was real, whatever Gramm had said. But the damage was done.
When McCain was in the Navy in Vietnam, he knew who the enemy was. These days he's got to watch the incoming from his friends.
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Howard Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief. He is the author of "Living Politics," a column that began on MSNBC.COM and Newsweek.com and that now also appears in the print magazine. An award-winning reporter and writer, Fineman also is an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing regularly on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and "TODAY." The author of scores of Newsweek cover stories, Fineman's work has appeared as well in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic. His 2008 national best-selling book, "The Thirteen American Arguments," was released in paperback by Random House in the spring of 2009.
One of the nation's leading political reporters, Fineman has interviewed every major presidential candidate from (then-vice president) George H.W. Bush in 1985 to (then senator) Barack Obama early and often in the 2008 campaign cycle. His current work focuses on the Obama Administration and its top officials, as well as on Congress and politics throughout the country. Although based in Washington, Fineman travels widely in the U.S. and has covered politics and other events in 49 of the 50 states.
Fineman's work has produced many milestones and awards. A cover story in November 2001 featured President George W. Bush's first extensive interview after 9/11. Another cover, "Bush and God," was part of a series of articles that won the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. His reporting has helped Newsweek win many honors from the Magazine Publishers Association and the American Journalism Review. Other awards include a "Page One" from the Headliners Club of New York, a "Silver Gavel" from the American Bar Association and a "Deadline Club" from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). In 2006 he received the Alumni Award from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
As a reporter and writer, Fineman ranges widely. Besides campaign-year covers, other projects have included: race and politics, the impact of digital technology on society, the influence of Hollywood on politics, the rise of the religious right and of conservative talk radio. He has interviewed business leaders such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Steve Case and Robert Rubin and entertainment figures such as Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda and Jay Leno.
Although now under exclusive television contract to NBC, Fineman over the years has appeared on major public affairs shows, such as Nightline, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose and the NewsHour. He was a regular panelist on Washington Week in Review on PBS (1983-95) and on CNN's Capital Gang Sunday (1995-98). He worked with Ted Koppel on Nightline specials, and has been a guest on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."
A native of Pittsburgh, Fineman began his career at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, covering the environment, the coal industry and state politics before joining the newspaper's Washington bureau in 1978. He moved to Newsweek in 1980, was named chief political correspondent in 1984, deputy Washington bureau chief in 1993, senior editor in 1995 and senior Washington correspondent and columnist in 2008.
Fineman holds an A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Colgate, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia and a J.D. from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. His legal education included a year as a visiting student at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received Watson and Pultizer Traveling Fellowships for study in Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and has traveled to more than 40 countries, among them China, Vietnam, Japan, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey and the West Bank Palestinian Territories.
Fineman is married to Amy L. Nathan, a senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission. They live in Washington with their two children, Meredith and Nicholas.
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