Rich on the Road

I feel a little like Forrest Gump today, looking back at John McCain's presidential campaign.  I haven't covered politics as much this time around but I seem to have stumbled into the key moments of the Arizona Senator's run -- and Phil Gramm was always there -- until now.

The high point came back in March, when Sen. McCain clinched the nomination on the night of the Texas primary.  He chose to celebrate at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas.  I was assigned to the event.  It's always fun to cover the winners and the McCain people put on a good show.  I was looking to fill a little air time and spied former Texas Senator Phil Gramm walking by.  He's always been a willing and interesting interview.

On camera, Gramm shed light on another moment I'd briefly shared with McCain -- the low point of the campaign.  Almost a year earlier McCain had come to Dallas, hat in hand, for a fund raising event.  He was trailing Rudy Giuliani in the polls, unable to raise money and having just cleaned house with his campaign staff.  He needed money and some deep-pocket Republicans here were willing to give it to him.  I'd been the only local TV reporter to bother covering his Dallas visit.  Most everyone else thought he was on the verge of dropping out of the race.

As Gramm told the story, when McCain's campaign faltered he turned to his former colleague from Texas for wise counsel.   It was the advice he'd given McCain (and the money he helped him raise) that enabled the turn around and set McCain on a new course that led to the nomination.  I don't recall all of the advice Gramm claimed he'd imparted -- but, clearly, he thought what he'd told his old friend had made the difference.  New strategies, different focus.  And, it may well have.  McCain certainly went from also-ran to winner.

Now Phil Gramm is gone -- at least from a visible role in McCain's run for the White House.  He's quit the campaign, a victim of ill-chosen words that are seen as having damaged McCain.  Here's what Gramm said in a statement issued along with his resignation as campaign Co-Chairman.

“It is clear to me that Democrats want to attack me rather than debate Senator McCain on important economic issues facing the country.  That kind of distraction hurts not only Senator McCain’s ability to present concrete programs to deal with the country’s problems, it hurts the country.”

Phil Gramm's sin was dismissing the troubled economy as "a mental recession" and saying the US has become "a nation of whiners."  Democrats have used that to portray Republicans as out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans -- with those who've lost jobs,  can't pay their mortgage, see their retirement funds disappear, or struggle with $4 gasoline.

Phil Gramm has always polarized people -- few are neutral on the man.  You either love him or hate him.  It reminds me of a line that Democrat Jim Hightower (former Texas Agriculture Commissioner) used to deliver, faithfully, at every campaign rally when he was running for Senate and trying to unseat Gramm.

"Some people claim," Hightower drawled, "that Phil Gramm is his own worst enemy."

Hightower would scan the crowd with a scowl on his face, shake his head slowly.  And, with perfect timing, deliver the punch line.

"Not while I'm alive he ain't!"

Rich