The wit who first said “With friends like these, who needs enemies?” captured the downside of political surrogates, those folks who in trying to be helpful too often only make things worse for their candidates.
The latest example is former Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, himself a failed presidential candidate in 1996. In the midst of this year?s nose-diving economy, he may have thought he was aiding his old pal, Arizona Sen. John McCain, by saying the nation was suffering only a “mental recession,” not a real one.
Gramm added insult to the injury by then observing that the United States had “become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline,” he said, in spite of “a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy.”
The comments came only a day before McCain found himself speaking ina Detroit suburb battered by economic woes besieging the dominant automaking industry in Michigan, where the unemployment rate of 8.5 percent leads the nation. Cutting off his old friend at the knees, McCain declared before a mostly unresponsive crowd than Gramm “does not speak for me. I speak for me. I strongly disagree [with his comments].”
It was a particularly awkward moment for McCain because Gramm has been one of his most stalwart supporters and frequent companion on the campaign trail. McCain has cited him as an experienced economic adviser, acknowledging publicly that economics has been his own short suit.
Presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama immediately seized on Gramm?s blunder, chiding that perhaps what he meant was high gas prices were “a figment of our imagination.” He added: “America already has one Dr. Phil,” to which McCain rather lamely called Obama “Dr. No” for lacking solutions himself to the nation?s latest economic woes.
McCain, asked about speculation that Gramm might be his treasury secretary if he is elected, flippantly dodged, suggesting Gramm might be more welcome as American ambassador to Belarus. The crack fell flat with the crowd, and one can only wonder how Gramm took it.
The former Texas senator, who much earlier quit the Democratic Party and was re-elected as a Republican, is not the first McCain surrogate to raise eyebrows in this campaign. Another constant McCain shadow on the trail is Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, who has latched onto McCain predominantly for his support of the war in Iraq.
Lieberman has been the most visible champion of the state of Israel in the McCain camp and earlier was seen whispering a correction to the candidate when he misspoke on who the players were in alleged Iranian involvement in that war. Lieberman?s conspicuous presence has cast doubts about his future as a participant in the Senate?s Democratic Caucus next year.
With an unprecedentedly heavy primary schedule this past spring, most presidential candidates needed surrogate campaigners to get out their messages, especially in smaller, secondary markets customarily assigned to vice presidential nominees in the fall general-election campaign.
The most active of these was former President Bill Clinton, who stumped in a host of smaller states and towns on behalf of his wife. But he too turned out to be a mixed blessing for her by making observations about Barack Obama that to many voters came across as petty and carping.
A candidate supporter does not have to be a formal surrogate on the campaign trail to do damage. Witness the videotaped rants of Obama?s former Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who proved to be too much of a political burden with further comments widely viewed as anti-American, obliging Obama to make a clean break with him.
Perhaps the most surprising and useful, if unofficial, surrogate service for Obama came the other day when Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., namesake son of the sharp-tongued civil rights leader and failed presidential candidate of 1984 and 1988, castigated his own father for uttering a slur on Obama.
In weighing their choices of running mates, Obama and McCain should consider not only how well they might serve as vice president, but also whether they will be effective ? and safe ? chief surrogates on the campaign trail this fall.
Jules Witcover, a Baltimore Examiner columnist, is syndicated by Tribune Media Services. He has covered national affairs from Washington, D.C., for more than 50 years and is the author of 11 books, and co-author of five others, on American politics andhistory.
