A Panel of Economic Advisers Minus Two

John McCain held an economic panel with two former high-profile advisers nowhere to be found.

Notable for their absence were two people who were close advisers in the early phases of Mr. McCain’s campaign: former Senator Phil Gramm and Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard. Both have been shunted off to Siberia, not because of policy disagreements but as the result of gaffes that reflected badly on the Republican candidate.

Mr. Gramm, now a banker, was the co-chairman of Mr. McCain’s campaign and an early favorite to be Secretary of the Treasury in a McCain Administration until July, when he told The Washington Times that Americans are “a nation of whiners” and the country was experiencing a recession that was “mental” rather than real.

Ms. Fiorina got herself into hot water in September, after saying that none of the four candidates on the two national tickets have the experience required to run a large company like hers.

If a recent poll of economists conducted by the British magazine The Economist is to be believed, many more professionals in the field favor Senator Barack Obama and his team than Mr. McCain. Of the participants in Monday morning’s event, only one can be described as a heavyweight economist: John B. Taylor, a professor at Stanford University who was Under Secretary of the Treasury for international affairs during the first administration of George W. Bush and has also worked for the Council of Economic Advisers and the Congressional Budget Office.

Comments (1) «

But is Gramm and Fiorina still on the team? Does McCain have the sense to realize that both of them were responsible for economic failures? Is he willing to forgive and forget and just go with his friends?

Palin would probably appoint her stylist as Secretary of Treasury....because he/she has had to manage such large sums of money from the RNC.

1

SandyH on October 28, 2008 at 11:12 AM

« Hide Comments

Post a comment