McCain laboring to hit right note on the economy
By Michael Cooper
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
VIENNA, Ohio: On Monday morning, as the financial system absorbed one of its biggest shocks in generations, Senator John McCain said, as he had many times before, that he believed the fundamentals of the economy were "strong."
Hours later he backpedaled, explaining that he had meant that American workers, which he described as the backbone of the economy, were productive and resilient. By Tuesday he was calling the economic situation "a total crisis" and decrying "greed" on Wall Street and in Washington.
The sharp turnabout in tone and substance reflected a recognition not only that McCain had struck a discordant note at a sensitive moment but also that he had done so with regard to the very issue on which he can least afford to stumble.
With economic conditions worsening over the course of this year and voter anxiety on the rise, McCain has had to labor to get past the impression ? fostered by his own admissions as recently as last year that the subject is not his strongest suit ? that he lacks the experience and understanding to address the nation's economic woes.
In the most recent case, he first sought to explain away his remarks about the economy's fundamental soundness by saying he had been referring to the American people and almost daring his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, to contradict him on that score. But within hours his aides were scheduling appearances for him Tuesday on all the morning television news shows so that he could try to erase the notion, being promoted aggressively by the Democrats, that he was out of touch.
His campaign also sent to reporters the text of a speech he was delivering later Monday that included much starker language about the nation's financial troubles, and by Tuesday had produced a new advertisement asserting that his experience and leadership were necessary in a "time of crisis." Aides and advisers repeated to anyone who would listen the phrase that has frequently followed McCain's comments about the economy's fundamental strengths: that "these are very, very difficult times."
Beyond striking a more populist tone and more explicitly acknowledging the nation's economic problems, his campaign also began an effort Tuesday to cast him as a strong leader with profound experience on economic issues, given his service on the Senate Commerce Committee, where he was chairman for six years. That effort quickly hit a pothole when one of his economic advisers suggested that he had helped to create the BlackBerry, by virtue of his role in brokering telecommunications legislation; the McCain campaign later disavowed that, calling the suggestion "boneheaded."
For much of this year, McCain has seemed to struggle to strike a balance between conveying the optimism that many voters seem to want in their leaders, and the I-feel-your-pain empathy that they crave during hard times. His task is complicated by the tension between his plans to continue many of the economic policies of the unpopular incumbent Republican president he hopes to succeed, and his pledges to improve the American economy and shake up Washington.
As recently as January, McCain argued at a Republican debate that Americans were better off than they were eight years ago; by this summer he had released an advertisement that said "we're worse off than we were four years ago."
His first big speech on the mortgage crisis warned against excessive government intervention; a month later he released his plan for government action to help people keep their homes.
And a tour on which he embarked in July to emphasize his understanding of Americans' economic pain was overshadowed when one of his top economic advisers, former Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, was quoted as saying that the United States was only in a "mental recession" and had become "a nation of whiners."
The most recent episode began Monday morning at a rally in Jacksonville, Florida, where McCain spoke of the troubles in the financial sector.
"There's tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and on Wall Street," he said. "People are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think still, the fundamentals of our economy are strong. But these are very, very difficult times. And I promise you we will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street. We will reform government. And this is a failure."
His statement about the strength of the economy's fundamentals was one he has made for nearly a year now, usually adding that times are tough or people are hurting. And in some ways, given that the recession that many have feared all that time has yet to be proclaimed officially, he has been borne out.
But his repeating the remark on Monday, even as the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers was helping send the stock market plunging to its steepest loss since the terrorist attacks of 2001, quickly became a political problem.
His campaign swung into action, to try to put the remark "in context," as one top aide said, and to push back against what the McCain organization deemed unfair attacks coming from the Obama camp. In short order McCain's campaign sent reporters the advance text ? a step usually reserved for major speeches or pronouncements ? of remarks he planned to deliver in Orlando, Florida, on Monday afternoon proclaiming that "the American economy is in crisis" and redefining what he had meant when he spoke about the "fundamentals."
On Tuesday morning, McCain was interviewed for CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and CNBC. Again and again, he explained that he understood the "crisis" and called for a new commission to study the problem, modeled on the one that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks.
On the NBC News television program "Today," Matt Lauer asked McCain how he could say that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" while his campaign was releasing an advertisement that said the economy was in crisis.
"Well, it's obviously true that the workers of America are the fundamentals of our economy, and our strength and our future," McCain replied. "And I believe in the American worker, and someone who disagrees with that ? it's fine. We are in crisis. We all know that. The excess, the greed and the corruption of Wall Street have caused us to have a situation which is going to affect every American. We are in a total crisis."
McCain's economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, told reporters Tuesday that the senator, who has often favored deregulation, would push for new regulations as president.
"This story line that people want to write that somehow McCain himself or the McCain campaign doesn't understand what's going on with the economy is wrong," Holtz-Eakin said. "You shouldn't run for president by denigrating everything in sight and trying to scare people. Let's be accurate. This is an economy that has serious problems."
By the end of the day, the campaign had gone back on offense. Here in Vienna, a Youngstown suburb, McCain noted at a joint rally with his running mate, Governor Sarah Palin, that Obama had originally chosen a former head of the recently bailed-out Fannie Mae to lead his vice-presidential search (though the head of McCain's search committee was himself a past lobbyist for Fannie Mae).
And Palin said that Obama's "tax plans really would kill jobs and hurt small businesses and make even today's bad economy look like the good old days." |
