Phil Gramm should get a commendation for honesty for "pulling a David Stockman". The Obama campaign should seize on this as a "teaching moment" for the American people. To use it properly, they need to repeat the moment and use it relentlessly until November -- and thereafter. If they do, this election will be a blow-out. One way to do this: give out Gramm-y awards.
Not since Budget Director Stockman revealed that the real goal of Ronald Reagan's massive tax cuts was to bankrupt the treasury so that no program investing in people or providing increased entitlements could even be considered has a Republican so openly conveyed their Party's true attitude toward the 95% of the country who suffer when gas prices go up, or high-wage jobs get transferred overseas, or have a child that gets sick.
Stockman was "taken to the woodshed" and that was the end of that. The clueless Democrats did not use it as a moment of enlightenment.
For nearly four decades the Republicans have attacked government as the cause of peoples' difficult lot in life, creating a electoral schizophrenia -- people still want, and need, a robust safety net, but have had it drummed into their heads that government is "too big and spends too much money" to do it.
Instead, they implied, the remedy is a good brisk walk and a strong slap-on-the-back for individuals, and a hefty slice of largesse for the heavy hitters, aka, "socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor". Gramm is an officer with the United Bank of Switzerland (UBS). He's doing just fine, so what is everyone whining about?
The Republicans have played this created schizophrenia brilliantly, hiding from the people that their attacks on government are really attacks on them. They introduced legislation with such names as "Saving Medicare", "Strengthening Social Security", and "Healthy Forests". They still pretend that the real fight was not over which party was more dedicated to these programs but which one could make them better by shrinking the role of government, a triumph of prestidigitation if there ever was one as it was to occur with burgeoning clientele. [FDR recognized this lie in 1940, saying mockingly: "Just give them control of them (New Deal programs), they plead, and they will take so much better care of them, honest-to-goodness they will".].
Gramm has revealed their true colors. The radical righties believe that it is fundamentally illegitimate for people even to want such programs and policies. That is what Gramm was saying.
What is government, after all? It should be an expression of the peoples' wills through their elected officials. Thus, when the Republicans attack government, they have really been attacking the American people. It is not just that government is, by its nature, inefficient--providing food stamps to the poor is inherently less profitable than selling quiche in the suburbs. It is that there is something wrong with you, they say, if having government provide services such as universal healthcare and old-age pensions is what you want.
There was a revealing moment in American politics about a year ago. Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar signed a bill increasing the minimum wage in California. Told that Rush Limbaugh was highly critical of him, Schwarzeneggar replied, "Rush Limbaugh is irrelevant".
Limbaugh panicked. So as not to cut his Republican ties, Schwarzeneggar appeared immediately on the Limbaugh show during which the dialogue went something like this...RL: "but the minimum wage is not a conservative position". AS: "it's what the people want". It was probably the only time that Limbaugh just shut up, because continuing the dialogue would have forced him to say what Gramm has just said, "who cares what the people want, they are whiners".
If the Democrats are not so stupid (as they usually are) to let it drop in a news cycle or two, Phil Gramm's comments about whining and recessions occurring in peoples' minds can become the moment of enlightenment for the American people. They need to make Gramm's comments the defining difference between the parties.
The Obama campaign has begun correctly. They have pointed out that the recession is not mental, but real. That is good.
But, they need to keep it up. They should have ads with Gramm's comments juxtaposed with real citizens working 2 or 3 jobs, and struggling to make ends meet. Obama should have at least one citizen at each stop with their own story.
They must ignore McCain's attempt to distance himself from Gramm's comments. Just ignore it. Keep up the drumbeat. Give out "Gramm-y" awards to Republicans who voted against the GI-bill; against expanding the Children's Health program; against a Windfall Profits Tax to recycle big-oils' profits to help lower income people cope with increased gas prices and to provide resources for alternative energy; against a new voting system for unionization...and so on.
Hand out "Gramm-y" awards to McCain on a whole legion of issues starting with health care, education, mortgage crisis, high energy prices.
During the 2004 campaign, Bush/Cheney whined it was because of multiple crises that they had not been able to create jobs. I provided Kerry/Edwards a response that went all the way back to FDR, showing how other Presidents, without exception, created jobs despite major crises. The campaign used it, and it was effective in one sense: the Bush/Cheney campaign never again used that excuse. I then urged them to keep using it over-and-over-and-over-and-over again. The DC consultants advising the Kerry/Edwards campaign's reaction: "we won this one".
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. When the other side shuts up, the protagonist has scored heavily and it should be a signal to repeat it constantly. The strategy was totally useless unless Kerry/Edwards had repeated it throughout the rest of the campaign. Repeating it would have scored heavily in the depressed Midwest, such as Ohio. It would have forced the Bush/Cheney people out of their Fox(news)holes to invent a different response, and they could not have.
Ignoring McCain's attempts to distance himself from the true Republican mantras will have another effect -- to the extent McCain then says, to the effect, "no, I believe in collective action through government as well", he will have lost his conservative base and his conservative credentials.
Let us watch for the next Republican whose vote or statement or position earns them the Gramm-y award. It will not take long.
And, don't forget to applaud.