Dems paint McCain as Bush on economy
Posted: Friday, July 11, 2008 4:31 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Democrats
From NBC’s Katie Mulhall
The DNC sought to end the week by portraying it a clear loss for McCain, calling his week on the economy a “disaster for his campaign” and even comparing it to one of the first President Bush’s worst economic moments, saying, “This may go down as John McCain’s ‘scanner’ moment.”
VIDEO: NBC's Kelly O'Donnell is on the campaign trail with John McCain, as the Republican presidential candidate focuses on women issues and the economy.
On a conference call today, Sen. Debbie
Stabenow (D-MI) hit McCain on his recent comments on Social Security and on ex-Sen. Phil
Gramm’s comments on the economy. McCain’s use of the word “disgrace” to describe aspects of Social Security, she said, demonstrated “a total lack of understanding of what Social Security is, that it’s an economic insurance policy.”
This combined with Gramm’s recent comments showed McCain “is totally out of touch” on the economy, she claimed. People in places like Michigan “are not hallucinating when they lose their jobs…when they can’t pay the mortgage…this is not psychological,” said Stabenow.
The senator also attacked McCain for missing a vote on Medicare on Tuesday, and said that his positions on Medicare and Social Security were no different than those of President Bush.
“When I close my eyes, I just hear George Bush: privatization…it’s just more of the same,” Stabenow said.
She also contended that McCain had been largely absent from Senate work to help the automotive industry, adding that his proposal for a prize for the development of a new car battery, ”We don’t want to treat the auto industry and the economy like a ‘game show.’"
Also on the call was a single mother and small business owner from Michigan, Niccole Blocker, who was apparently incensed by Gramm’s comments. She said that as a middle-class woman, “for Phil Gramm to insult us, to stand like he is above us, that we are imagining that this is some kind of ‘mental recession,’ enraged us…. He has no idea that people are just trying to eat and feed their families.”
Of McCain, she thought that he acted “above us,” and that the state of the economy had her “just up in arms. I just don’t know what to say; I’m disgusted.”
