The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08

Our assignment manager Melydia is convinced that something’s afoot with the stars (”Jupiter is now opposite the Earth”) & causing some general crazies to come out; current evidence that makes this case:

1. We’ve had a gentleman call the newsroom repeatedly telling us about a premonition he’s had that aliens are about to arrive & achieve world peace & reduce our dependency on foreign oil,

2. Our newsroom has received approximately 136,372 e-mail messages from an apparent organized campaign to “bring the makers of Red Bull to justice” (please - don’t ask),

3. Jesse Jackson making some crazy remark that I won’t reprint here about Barack Obama that’s (unfortunately) dominating the current news cycle, &

4. The topic of this post, Phil Gramm, former advisor to John McCain, who has said that America is not in an actual recession but rather a “mental recession.” Quote:

“You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession,” he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. “We may have a recession; we haven’t had one yet.”

“We have sort of become a nation of whiners,” he said. “You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline” despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said.

“We’ve never been more dominant; we’ve never had more natural advantages than we have today,” he said. “We have benefited greatly” from the globalization of the economy in the last 30 years.

Mr. Gramm said the constant drubbing of the media on the economy’s problems is one reason people have lost confidence. Various surveys show that consumer confidence has fallen precipitously this year to the lowest levels in two to three decades, with most analysts attributing that to record high gasoline prices over $4 a gallon and big drops in the value of homes, which are consumers’ biggest assets.

“Misery sells newspapers,” Mr. Gramm said. “Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day.”

Let’s forget completely for the moment whether or not Gramm has a point (for the record, I think he’s wrong) so we can make this one: Americans of all political stripes are not happy with how gas prices are eating into their pocketbooks these days, & none of them likes to be told by anyone that they’re “just a bunch of whiners.”

It’s only natural that the Obama campaign took advantage of this low-hanging fruit:

“One of Senator McCain’s top economic advisors may think that when people are struggling with lost jobs, stagnant wages, and the rising costs of everything from gas to groceries, it’s merely a ‘mental recession’. And Senator McCain may think it’s sufficient to offer energy proposals that he admits will have mainly ‘psychological’ benefits. But the American people know that our economic problems aren’t just in their heads. They don’t need psychological relief – they need real relief – and that’s what Barack Obama will provide as President,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

& so, as you can imagine, just as Barack is doing so with Jesse, John McCain took pains to distance himself from Gramm’s remarks:

“Phil Gramm’s comments are not representative of John McCain’s views. John McCain travels the country every day talking to Americans who are hurting, feeling pain at the pump and worrying about how they’ll pay their mortgage. That’s why he has a realistic plan to deliver immediate relief at the gas pump, grow our economy and put Americans back to work.”

One last point on Gramm - it’s pretty amazing to me that the McCain camp kept Gramm on board with the campaign as long as he did. When he was a Senator in the late 90s, he was instrumental in deregulating the housing industry, which helped contribute to the housing crisis we’re in today.

What do you think? Are these tough economic times all in your head? Let us know by posting a comment!

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