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."

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.

The lesson he missed is the one that tells rich Republicans who represent banks that they should keep their mouths shut.




LINK

Zimmer

Phil Gramm of Texas is not known as a man of developed intellect nor steady statesmanship.
He’s known for pork barreling, for speaking in crude ways, for blurting out unseemly epithets at American citizens, and for jeering at the unfortunate.
His words this week are not the first time this privileged, pampered and wealthy man has frothed with scorn at the poor, the jobless, the uninsured, the homeless, the foreclosed upon, the working class, and the unprotected.
The times he’s done this are legion, year after year, decade after decade.

That Gramm is held out as McCain’s “highest economic advisor” is like saying Sylvester the Cat is going to be advising the Senator on the care and treatment of canaries.

Gramm will sink Senator McCain if he is allowed to continue in ‘highest economic advisory’ capacity.
McCain has a certain dignity that Gramm will splat on, over and over again.

Gramm, before he left the Federal legislature ‘to spend more time with his family’ in the midst of a supposedly successful career, was known for saying deeply insightful things about economics and commerce.
Here are some quotes from Gramm:

“Half the world does not know the joys of wearing cotton underwear.” (promoting US exports, as quoted in Time)”

“I’m carrying so much pork [home to Texas] I’m beginning to get trichinosis.”

“If I bought groceries the way I buy health insurance, I’d eat a lot better - and so would my dog”

“I have the most reliable friend you can have in American politics, and that is ready money.”

Gramm, as a powerful Texas senator in 2000, slipped an Enron-backed provision into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act that exempted from regulation energy trading on electronic platforms.

Then, over the next year, Enron – with Gramm’s wife Wendy serving on its board of directors – worked to create false electricity shortages in California, bilking consumers out of an estimated $40 billion.

Internal Enron documents, which were released in 2002, revealed that the Houston-based company helped write the legislation.
Freed from regulatory interference, and with Wendy Gramm on the board, Enron then used manipulative trading practices to game the California electricity market and drive up electricity prices across the state.
While California consumers were getting fleeced, the new Bush administration shielded Enron from early accusations of market manipulation. President Bush personally joined the fight against imposing caps on the soaring price of electricity, buying additional time for Enron although the company’s house of cards collapsed anyway in fall 2001.

LINK

Heres a ENRON PROMO pic of Phil's wife Wendy Gramm



And heres the Board picture of her cozying up to Kenneth Lay
< to the left of her sitting down>





Zimmer

"This is the vein in the Democratic party I will never understand, cannot accept on any level. What is it about some people who just don't get the problems with our Democratic nominee being friendly, even taking a contribution (however small), as well as having a meeting as recently as 1995 with an unrepentant domestic terrorist like William Ayers? It reveals a lack of seriousness about the issue of terrorism and the dangerously immature judgment of anyone who is going to associate with a man, at the very least, that Republicans will use to beat us over the head with, having the bonus of hitting a spot the public loves to drink up, which is that our party is not serious about the dangers we face in this world..."

http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=27075

The facts are quite clear:
1. William Ayers conducted terrorist attacks inside the United States and against the U.S. Government. He does not consider himself a terrorist, but he admits he did the acts.
2. Barack Obama has had a long standing relationship with Ayers and is quite knowledgeable of his past.
3. Barack and Ayers served together on the Wood Fund. I am told, but have not yet confirmed, that they steered money to an individual who is under Federal indictment. If that is true, life gets more interesting.
4. William Ayers made a small financial contribution to Obama’s first campaign. In the total scheme of things, not significant, except it will be used by Republicans against Obama in the fall. How do you explain to Joe or Jane Average American that a guy who describes U.S. Marines as terrorists not only gave you money but also helped raise money for your campaign? Do you really think most Americans will shrug and say, “No big deal”?

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/02/15/obamas-terrorist-ties/

Obama's subprime pals:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/919177,CST-NWS-pritz28.article

"One of the banks that went under after making a lot of subprime loans -- leaving 1,400 of its customers without part of their savings -- was Chicago's Superior Bank.
At the helm of Superior Bank at least some of the time was Obama's national finance chairwoman, Penny Pritzker, an heiress to the Pritzker fortune.
Obama's campaign notes that Pritzker stepped down as chairwoman of the bank's board in 1994, seven years before it failed. She then went on the board of the bank's holding company.
But a letter obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times shows that until the end, Pritzker appeared to be taking a leadership role in trying to revive the bank with an expanded push into subprime loans..."

No Hijacking William.....
Stay on subject.
If I'm gonna be taken to task for diversion,
the rules will apply to everyone.
Dispute the facts.
No "changing the subject to Obama, because when I respond in that fashion,
its whine-time at the old forum.
"Zimmy ALWAYS hijacks.... WAHHHHHH......"
Lets see if you folks can walk the walk, instead of just talking the talk.

Keep in mind I'm not busting on you personally.


Zimmer

BELLEVILLE, Mich., July 10 -- Sen. John McCain ventured to an auto-parts supplier in this hard-hit Detroit suburb to express sympathy for those affected by Michigan's economic malaise and to talk up his ideas for creating jobs in the region.

But a day after a top McCain economic adviser dismissed the nation's struggles as a "mental recession," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's message landed with a thud, as workers sat in stony silence.

McCain was already running into a stiff headwind because of an ailing economy, and his task only became tougher after former senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) suggested that the United States has "become a nation of whiners."

Gramm, who has helped shape McCain's presidential campaign and is a close friend of the candidate, expressed no regret on Thursday for the comments he made in an interview with the Washington Times, saying: "I'm not going to retract any of it. Every word I said was true."

." Gramm's "mental recession" comment hung over him all day Thursday in Michigan.
The backdrop could not have been worse. The unemployment rate in the Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn area is 10.2 percent. The nation's next closest, 7.1 percent, is in the area around Lawrence and Salem, Mass.

McCain is hoping to put the state into play, but on Thursday, in this Detroit suburb, his efforts ran into a wall.

------------------------------------------

This story has legs.

Its going to damage an already lame campaign, that already lacks any semblance of excitement.
So.....
How should McCain deal with it?
Any of you NeoCons have the answer?

HINT:
Bashing the other canidate isn't it....
The damage has been done from within.
The Republican brand is ruined.
And it's their fault.
Don't blame the Dems for riding the wave that the Republicans created.
In this election the cookie monster could get elected, as long as he wasn't a Republican.
And it's THEIR FAULT.

Zimmer

"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."

Zimmer,

Please don't tell me you actually believe that McCain, Bush or the Republican party is only to blame here.

The Democrat congress promissed to bring down gas prices...they have more than doubled due to both inaction and their own mismanagement. In the first 10 months of this congress, all they managed to do productively was rename post offices country wide. The corn subsidies pork was not only brought home by both sides, but predominately by Democrats that just happen to hold collectively about $680 MILLION of them in their personal holdings, vs 1.2 Million on the Republican side.

The "mortgage crisis" is a sham. 96% of mortgage holders ARE paying their mortgages. THAT'S 96%. Bush may have proposed the idea of the banks "stretching" to help first time buyers, but it was this Democratic congress that wrote the bill and sent it up. In "stretching" these loans to previously unqualified buyers, they(new buyers) were for the first time ever, allowed to get other loans to make the down payments on these houses. The term is called mousing/ mouse house loans. And guess what. Countrywide was giving "special" rates to congress for purchase and refinances immediately afterward.

My point is that the news sources you choose are playing the blame game, pitting the classes against each other, when in truth and in fact, it is simply just spin.

The only thing incorrect about Gramm's statement was the timing, and the place. It should have been said years ago when the auto industry was enkoying record sales. The statement is, unfortunately CORRECT.

BTW, do you also blame Bush, McCain, and the Republicans for the downturn in the auto industry?

The price of gas that the Dems so rightiously promised they would bring down is an enormous part of the auto industry woes, as well as this congress' attempts to derail them right and left, by changing EPA targeted dates when they are on track to meet what was put at them. The new emissions that were forced on them to produce, raised diesel vehicle prices, on average $5,000 per unit. Watch what happens to your new Camero price next year when the new gas engine standards kick in. Try about an extra $3,000 per car across the board.

Yes, sir. this congress' approval rating of 9% now (1/3 of Bush's BTW!), will set yet another record low...probably down to about 5% if they are lucky. And uhhh, who is in control of congress now?

You have made many comments about how they are all just politicians, and NONE of them are to be trusted. Overall, you are right. McCain is at least a humble man, and can admit when he needs advisors, and can admit when he as a weak spot he needs help with. He is not my candidate of choice as you know.

But I will take him 7 days a week and twice on Sundays over the arrogant, self serving, pompass ass, bumbling boob that can't speek an intelligent sentence witout a teleprompter that Obama is.

I believe that rightfully or not,
the Republicans are going to be blamed for this at the polls.

And They are DOING NOTHING to redeem themselves.
Hell, even the Republicans themselves know it...

"The House Republican brand is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, they'd take it off the shelf," said retiring Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), who chaired the NRCC for four years earlier this decade.

The Republicans have abandoned their party platform with its fiscal conservatism, restrained foreign policies, and solid social stances.
And they will pay dearly for it in the fall.

Zimmer

Please don't tell me you actually believe that McCain, Bush or the Republican party is only to blame here.

I do not believe they are solely to blame for the mess WE ARE IN.
BUT:
I do believe they are solely responsible for the mess THEY ARE IN.

Think you have the answer?
Tell them...... Because I intend to.

Today, the Republican National Committee launches GOPPlatform2008.com, a site that allows anyone with an Internet connection to send their thoughts on the party's platform via text or video in the months leading up to the convention in September.

Maybe they are desperate enough at this point to ACTUALLY LISTEN to their constituency.

Zimmer

zimbu wrote:

Please don't tell me you actually believe that McCain, Bush or the Republican party is only to blame here.

I do not believe they are solely to blame for the mess WE ARE IN.
BUT:
I do believe they are solely responsible for the mess THEY ARE IN.

There's no way to argue this one, for sure!

Think you have the answer?
Tell them...... Because I intend to.

Today, the Republican National Committee launches GOPPlatform2008.com, a site that allows anyone with an Internet connection to send their thoughts on the party's platform via text or video in the months leading up to the convention in September.

Maybe they are desperate enough at this point to ACTUALLY LISTEN to their constituency.

Zimmer

Thanks for the link. I am going to email it to everyone in my address book. Let's see if it helps.

zimbu wrote:

Think you have the answer?
Tell them...... Because I intend to.

Today, the Republican National Committee launches GOPPlatform2008.com, a site that allows anyone with an Internet connection to send their thoughts on the party's platform via text or video in the months leading up to the convention in September.

Maybe they are desperate enough at this point to ACTUALLY LISTEN to their constituency.

Zimmer

This really deserves a thread of it's Zimmer. Please start it since it is yours! If not I will. It needs attention that someone may not look at on this thread.

Thanks for the link. I am going to email it to everyone in my address book. Let's see if it helps.

Lets hope so.
I'm emailing it as well.
Who knows...
Maybe some day I will switch my voter registration
back to them from independent.
But before I do they are gonna have to show me the change,
not just give out lip-service about it.

I will start a thread about it now.

Zimmer

Gramm is right about one thing, we really have become a nation of whiners.