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I don't know when Barack Obama's economic team put John McCain, John McCain's economic advisers, and John McCain's surrogates on their payroll, but it sure was a good investment. Between McCain admitting that he knows little about economics and less about Social Security and Phil Gramm calling the recession a psychological disorder, I'd thought the McCain campaign had endured about as bad a week on economic issues as possible. But there are a couple hours left before Sunday ticks over to Monday, and McCain surrogate and VP-possibility Mark Sanford didn't want to miss out on all the fun:
BLITZER: Are there any significant economic differences between what the Bush administration has put forward over these many years as opposed to now what John McCain supports?SANFORD: Um, yeah. For instance, take, you know, take, for instance, the issue of -- I'm drawing a blank, and I hate it when I do that, particularly on television. Take, for instance the contrast on NAFTA. I mean, I think that the bigger issue is credibility in where one is coming from, are they consistent where they come from.Sanford, of course, can't come up with any significant difference because McCain has systematically wiped those differences out. Where he once opposed the President's tax cuts, he's flipped and now swears he'll make them permanent. His health care plan is pretty close to what Bush proposed in his 2006 State of the Union. He's stopped sponsoring cap and trade legislation. Sanford eventually named earmarks as a defining disagreement, but earmarks are not a major economic policy: They're a procedural reform dealing with government spending. But even if there are no substantive differences between McCain and Bush on economic policy, you'd think the McCain campaign would have prepared its major surrogates to argue otherwise. Their candidate's great weakness is his proximity to the most broadly disliked president in history. You might imagine the campaign would have come up with a few ways to try and talk to the electorate out of drawing that connection. You'd apparently be wrong.
