Are you having trouble making the mortgage payment now that your adjustable rate has gone up?

Are prices at the pump making it tougher for you to get by?

Are your stagnant wages not keeping up with your expenses?

Good news! McCain adviser Phil Gramm says it's all in your head!

"You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession [...] We may have a recession; we haven't had one yet."

Talk about out-of-touch. Tell the family whose house is being foreclosed on that we haven't had a recession yet. Tell the people who are getting laid off, or who are going back to work at jobs with longer hours for less pay and no benefits, that we haven't had a recession yet. Months of growth are fine and dandy - but when that growth only affects the portfolios of the top 1%, let's not pretend that the other 99% aren't feeling the pinch.

But that isn't even the best part:

We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline."

A nation of whiners? Does that make John McCain - who said in a recent ad that our economy is "in shambles" - the greatest whiner of all? And how can Phil Gramm continue to have a role in the campaign of a big whiner like John McCain?

John McCain needs to not only denounce these words but also ensure that Phil Gramm no longer serves in his campaign. For a candidate whose economic elitism - multiple houses (at least one of which he hasn't paid taxes on), hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit-card debt, the penchant for high-stakes craps games in Vegas - is a major storm on the horizon, a connection to someone who calls the very real struggles of everyday Americans "whining" will only add to the trouble.

Labels: John McCain, Phil Gramm, Politics, Republicans