The Gramm-y Awards: Use It as a 'Teaching Moment'

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.

Comments

[glitzqueen]

Cheney's "So?" was the same dismissive message. Dems should echo both relentlessly.

[Indubio]

What Abrams has said above is all too true but here's the thing: He's talking about the present recession. The problem for Americans is that their buying power and their ability to maintain a middle class lifestyle has been in jeopardy for at least 2 decades. The lion's share of the wealth that has been created over the past 25 years has accrued to the top ~5% and the rest of us have received crumbs (trickle down). What Abram's describes isn't new. What's new is the acuteness of the economic pain; before 2008, many Americans were able to convince themselves that things really weren't so bad but if you had lost your job/career to globalization, if you were a single parent, or a minority citizen, life has been difficult for a long time and there's been a decreasing social safety net to catch those who fall hard. Our society has been in the hands of conservatives for decades and during the time of their stewardship the social contract between people and their society has largely been destroyed. Where seeing the consequences of incredibly poor social and economic policy today and I'm afraid things are only going to get worse.

[HWBII]

Bravo, bravo, bravo. You must get this to the Obama campaign. I dearly hope they are already working on ads spotlighting this absurd, elitist and grotesque comment of Gramm's. Reminds me a bit of Barbara Bush saying that the Katrina victims displaced to an arena in Houston were "better off" than they were in New Orleans. Sick-making.

[SeaClearly]

Gramm-y Award Nominations:
(1) Bush, on the economy: "I think this economy is down because we built too many houses."
(2) Bush, on the possibility of $4-a-gallon gasoline: "That's interesting. I hadn't heard that."

[PaulAbrams]

Superb.

[SILVANUS]

Gramm is contemptible, a let them eat cake snob, but he is correct in a fashion: We ARE whiners, because any self-respecting public valuing critical thought and truly capable of paying more than five minutes of attention to anything other than football, Iphones, sexual tee-hee-he­e-ohmygaww­wd, Travis Tritt, or Sh*tney Brears would have already reclaimed Washington and tried certain traitors for treason, as Jefferson warned us we might have to do from time to time.
We got fat, we got dumb, we got distracted, we got too up-our-own assholes-p­ostmodern, and we let the lying 'faux-Christian' politico bullies hijack so-called 'morality', and the greedy vultures hijack our freedoms, and too many got too comfortable, then turned their eyes away from the less fortunate, and we're paying for it.
Sometimes, fellows, you have to HIT THEM BACK.. and in the gut, HARD. That's all a ReThug understands.
Yak-yak don't mean squat to them: they are predators and bullies, and they accept that.

[osturk]

LIfe is good in Texas maby Gramm is spending too much time here.

[osturk]

Gramm is right we are runing down the economy by whining about it. Things are slow but crying about it is not going to help. We need to be positive about the good things and work on the bad.

[dawlishgal]

If the economy gets bad enough (and it seems to be headed in that direction) all of the positive "talk" in the world isn't going to help it. We could put people to work on infrastructure if we didn't waste so much on a war or choice for oil and ego. We could do it anyhow if this weren't an election year in which selfish politicians are more worried about getting reelected than in solving problems. (When was the last time McCain showed up for a senate vote?)

Curiously, the Republicans are quick to want to spend on wars, reluctant to spend to keep things working and in decent repair, things that were contributed and paid for by previous generations. ...things like roads, bridges, libraries, schools. They want to USE them, they just don't want to pay to fix them.

Could somebody remind me again of why they are called conservatives, when all they seem to want to conserve is their tax money. The environment, the infrastructure, any kind of safety nets that allow people to live more worry-free lives, HEY, not the Republicans' problems.

[4President]

I wrote and called my senators many times, for not. Protesters are removed and jailed, dissenters discredited and ousted, the average citizen has no true recourse to petition this government. Your rant is without reason. I am ready when you are!

Omg, have you saw 'Living Lohan'?!?!?!?!?!

[TheHandyman]

Too bad that the people don't recognize Gramm's statement for what it is. And they should understand that this is just verbal indicator that was used. They only have to look at what both parties have done over the last 30 plus years and that is to use the People's money to further the wealth of the rich. Washington is as corrupt as was the old Russian Communists. Russia became a "Democracy" not because anything Reagan did, but rather the people who had gained wealth through the corruption of the social process saw that they could become even richer by supporting a "Democratic" movement and then scoop up and privatize all those things that were supposedly held in trust for the People of Russia.

Oil, Gas, minerals, forests, water, all the things that are jointly owned by the People of this country are handed over for unregulated exploitation by the wealthy. Bush hates Chavez because he stopped the American companies from doing the same thing there that they do here.

Phil Gramm showed the disdain that the aristocracy showed for the people of France when they said, "let them eat cake!" Gramm just gave words to describe what those in Washington have been doing for decades. So when will the Revolution begin? Not with Obama who is already hemming and hawing.

[4President]

One only need look back a few months. John McCain made a similar statement in an interview.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/19/mccain-a-lot-of-our-problems-today-are-psychological/

This is an ideology. Everyman for himself. This is what they believe, and yes it is reflected in their records.

Republicans have not led this country with our interests in mind, the richest one percent have experienced 100% of the economic growth this country has seen over the last 7 years.

[beck]

Phil and Wendy Gramm: Portraits in Corruption

If one were to look for the people most influential in the deregulation of the barriers between speculation and energy, and between speculation and mortgages these two would be the stars.
So you might say they, along with their Republican buddies, are at the root of both the current mortgage crisis and the current crisis in energy speculation.

Their story is one of nepotism and revolving doors between regulating agencies and the corporations they regulate. A story of industry advocates and Congressional representatives working together in the same family.

Meanwhile Wendy has rotated from regulatory commissions to the boards of directors of those who are regulated. The most notable example is Enron. While on the Commodity Futures and Trading Commission during the Reagan administration she helped install the Enron loophole while her husband Phil helped push the legislation through Congress. Later Wendy sat on the board of Enron. She was named in the Enron lawsuit for insider trading and was involved in a settlement of several million dollars. As a reward she went on to another government position.

Phil Gramm mortgage investments:

http://www.motherjones.com/new...

Wendy Gramm bio and employment history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...

[sandyfeets]

Excellent advice! A very good insight and one the Democrats should immediately take to heart. I can't believe they appear to be letting this gift from Gramm pass them by.

[plafayette]

Thank you Paul Abrams! Spot on! Please, please send this to the Obama campaign. They must not let this moment pass. Not only are American families working two and three jobs, but they are often supporting mutiple extended family units. Many like myself have struggling adult children who have their own family- and a aging parent whose healthcare has eroded her savings and the cost of living has exceeded her small pension. I like millions of others know that this is not just going on in my psyche. Daycare for two children is over $600.00 per week! Obama has a twenty point lead in the polls when it comes to the economy - yet he is only three points ahead in the overall poll. WTF is going on in this country. Who in GODS holy name is supporting McBush and four more years of this kind of suffering? Paul - I just don't believe it. The republicans have rigged the entire election process. I repeat we are NOT a nation of FOOLS. 80% believe the country is going in the wrong direction how can McBush have overall 41% of support and Obama 44%. This is BS!

[guajiro]

Best article on Huffpo today by far ! ! I do think that in general, the Democratic party has a slightly higher hill to climb than the Republicans do when it comes to being organized about a particular message they want to get out to the media. The major client for the Republicans is the MultiNational corporation and their stockholders, while for the Democrats it is the small business and individual taxpayer. Controlling a group of politicians whom have different constituencies pulling them in different directions due to their different needs, like the Democrats have to do, is harder then it is for the Republicans who have mostly one major client: MultiNational and Fortune 500 corporate America. However, if Dean can do it, and he has the Internet that offsets the message Republicans transmit through the newspapers and television media they own, America might start to slow the downward spiral it is currently in thanks to 30 years of conservati­ve/Republi­can rule.

[DrFitz]

I couldn't agree more!! This is fantastic analysis along with some strong specific suggestions for how to use this golden opportunity to really affect worldviews and assumptions people bring to the table when thinking about parties and politicians.

[gramofsam1]

This is a GREAT idea--- it's simple enough for even "low-information" voters to understand, it fits in the media sound-bite window, and yet it can be expanded as the teachable moment you reference. Love it!

[Kassandra]

But Obama wants to "reach across the aisle"!
I always said he'd pull back a stump if he does that. Here is his "out of the ballpark moment" and he just mild manners it again. That's why I liked Clinton; she NEVER would have let such a juicy hanger glide right by her.

We are in big trouble and both these candidates; McCain and Obama are acting like we're all on top 'o the world.

I think it indicates a lack of knowledge/­compassion for real world people which is going to come back and bite us all in the proverbial butt when Bernanke pulls the plug on economy for real after the election.

Obama better wise up if he thinks these GOP'ers need to be treated with kid gloves.

[NChooseK]

Technically, it isn't a recession yet, because we haven't had two quarters of negative growth. We haven't even had one.

What we are experiencing is stagflation, high inflation coupled with slow growth. This economic disease hit the U.S. economy hard in the '70s and helped defeat both Ford in 1976 and Carter in 1980. High oil prices were the main culprit back then, and the percentage shocks were bigger than they are now. This decade has been like the frog in the slowly warming pot, except the warming has gotten much worse in the last year, with crude oil effectively doubling in price from last July to now.

Add a foreclosure crisis and a country with a negative savings rate, and we are facing serious trouble for some time to come, regardless of who becomes president.

[ebanks84]

I'm glad Obama's campaign are not running this into the ground like the republicans do on just about everything they get their sticky hands on. I love it when Obama refuses to drop to their level and stays above the frey. Obama is not trying to get us with MIND CONTROL techniques like the republicans use every day.

[billgottschall]

Phil Gramm is a director of UBS! No international bank has fared as badly as UBS during the packaged mortgage product frenzy. Shareholders in UBS should be suing their board of directors.

What could be more embarassing than to be on the board of directors of the largest Swiss Bank at the time that bank had to go into the capital markets twice for the largest private equity beg in the history of Swiss banking.

A huge Swiss Bank used to be a license to mint money. I guess I should pull my accounts from UBS Zurich now that I realize Phil Gramm is on the board of directors.

[Paul Abrams - Huffpost Blogger]

You miss one point--these people are incapable of embarrassment. It's a symptom, but an indication of one of their big problems.

[connski]

Gramm and UBS, of which he's a VP, are guilty of dangerous speculation in CDO's. He's no model of a financial advisor. His "whiner" comment does show true Repbulican colors - as does Paulson's of a few months ago that people who walk away from mortgages when their homes drop in value are speculators. No, the banks were speculators. Another example of the Republican big lie - accusing another class for what they themselves do. Put Larry Craig and David Vitter in the same boat.