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You know Jesse's not happy. He's kind of lost his audience. It's all about who's the cock-of-the-walk. It's not about advancing the cause of whatever color people or this group or that group. It's about being the Big Dog, thus the reference to Barrack's emasculation. Jesse's schtick is black victimization. Now, here's a black man who is not playing that game (maybe just for political reasons, who knows?) Very threatening. Jesse's world is history if Barrack wins. The victim track is seductive and has worked for Jesse. You saw the same thing play out with the change in NAACP leadership last year. The Top Dog there started espousing a non-victim philsophy. The board quickly determined he had to go, and BAM, gone.

Obama has made it further into the realm of presidential politics than Jackson ever did. Jackson's power and financial security depend on being the top-dog in the race-baiting world, but he's no longer the most recognized black "leader" in our country
Emasculating one's opponent is a typically juvenile response when one feels his manhood threatened. Not to mention one's pocketbook.

The flipside however is that if Barrack loses, a new dawn of vicitimization will begin again, because everybody knows why Barrack will have lost.

Jesse is going to have to just hang in, work like hell for McCain behind the scenes, and say he wasn't feeling well and maybe had some salmonella jalapenos for lunch and didn't know what he was saying. He could even say he was misquoted and that what he actually said was he wanted to " cut down the walls" that may be preventing people from voting for Obama because of his race.

No votes for Phil?

Phil's absolutely right. If you lost your factory job in this economy, it's your own fault and you're a whiner. You should have just worked harder. It has nothing to do with the CEO trying to feather that little retirement condo on his own island in the Bahamas. It has nothing to do with Banks and Corporations boards of directors, when they aren't voting themselves and the CEO huge raises, making decisions based on short-term support of the stockprice and ignoring long-term health of their company, making loans to people who don't know any better, and a government that let's them do it

So, get over it!

Ok, Doug, I'll vote for Phil because his comments are more substantively harmful to his candidate. Gramm has been a key economic advisor & we should be a little worried that McCain's economic policy positions have been written by a guy who thinks it's all a matter of psychology. Now, if the question had been whose Freudian slip is showing . . .

I agree, LG. McCain already has a problem convincing anyone he has an economic plan; then his economic adviser says, "Shucks, we don't need no plan 'cause there ain't no problem."

On the other side, Jackson's resentment/envy of Obama probably helps Obama. At least we know JJ won't be visiting the Obama White House, or if he does the Secret Service will keep a very close eye on him.

Well, I hate to be the voice of facticity, but Gramm's right: we are a nation of economic whiners. This paper has referred to the recession/depression probably 10,000 times, but, well, there's no recession. Of course, as he pointed out, no one really expects the press to worry too much about facts. There's not even a single quarter of economic decline.

Oh, I know, it FEELS like a recession, since Bob's cousin lost his job at the mill (although unemployment is still under 6%--low by historical standards: another annoying fact) and gas is up, but the fact is it's not. Our economy is in a period of SLOW GROWTH: OH, THE AGONY!! Even with gas prices, inflation is up around 3-4%--yes, that's right, since we spend, on average, about 6% of our income on gas--and people are convinced it's 1929 all over again.

Of course, it is bad politics to point out that America is a nation of economic babies, since many of those babies want politicians to feel their pain. What an idiot Gramm is, to speak factually rather than telling people what they want to hear. What is he doing in politics?

brian, do McCain a favor and don't send him any economic advice. He can kick away the election on his own.

But, to add balance to this discussion, I think Jesse Jackson is stupider than Phil Gramm because he says a lot of stupid things (like his promise to pay the college tuition of the Duke lacrosse rape "victim") ... but Gramm, because of the harm done to McCain's campaign, is the idiot of this particular week.

Doug said:
But, to add balance to this discussion, I think Jesse Jackson is stupider than Phil Gramm because he says a lot of stupid things (like his promise to pay the college tuition of the Duke lacrosse rape "victim") ... but Gramm, because of the harm done to McCain's campaign, is the idiot of this particular week.

Comparing Jesse and Phil is like deciding who the winner is in a " One leg ass kicking contest" or who the winner is in the " Ugly Man Frankstein contest"

Two things about Phil,

1. We ran him out of Georgia [ Phil got his PhD from the University of Georgia School of Business] in the late 60's when he said the Georgia Bulldogs football program would fail because of the whinning of Coach Dooly about not getting quailty black players for UGA
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2. He married up! His wife sits on the board of the Chicago Board of Trade and guess how many oil future contracts she controls?

McCain's only chance--a slim one--is to forego the platitudinous style of Obama, speak straight and to the point (example: "the government isn't going to stop globalization, nor should it; nor does it control very much of the economy"), and make a case that he's the straight shooter who will tell it like it is. In a battle of pandering and platitudes, he'll get destroyed.

I believe that Warren Beatty made a Hollywood movie about a politician like this, and he ended up winning over the fickle public. (I think; I never saw the movie.)

Nice little Depression era type bank run today at a bank in CA. Scary stuff.