This can't possibly come as a surprise, right? The extreme disconnect between those who see themselves as all-powerful in the echo chamber that is Washington and working people, those who've watched good-paying manufacturing jobs "head south", is probably as wide as its been since the 1880s. Their stenographers have <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200801060004"><span>exactly the same perceptions</span></a> so the echo chamber resonates with perfect clarity - if you're on the inside. Of such disconnects are real change made. The collapse of the mortgage-derived Ponzi scheme passing as an economy means that we're just at the start of the earthquake. Someone needs to tell Phil, quick, so that he doesn't get run over by the whiners when it all comes down.

I'm a registered democrat and look forward to OBAMA!  But as an American who doesn't treat my house like a credit card, who saves during the good times so I can ride out the bad---really, Gramm has a point.  Stop living above your means, people!  --stop whining and stop consuming. Ride your bike, stop overeating, go to community college for a couple of years, and think ahead!  Anybody who thought good times would last forever during a time of WAR and G. Bush policies is a complete idiot. Most Americans supported W and his stupid war based on lies and now they whine about it..  We did it to ourselves.

Thank You Senator Gramm: you have finally publicly confirmed what I have always known about the Republican Party all of my adult life... that Republicans are completely out-of-touch (clueless in extremeis) with the average American household.  Ironically, middle-class America allowed itself to be sucked into all that Republican nonsense about family values (as if the GOP invented love of family), jingoistic patriotism, and stifling, phony religiosity.  Now, however, those Sam's Club Republicans are waking up to the sad truth about their own and this nation's security: no person or country can be secure with a ruined economy, runaway foreclosures, joblessness, a crumbling infrastructure (hello Mississippi Levee System), and lack of comprehensive universal health care, not to mention the collective responsibility for an immoral and illegal war and the condemnation of most of the free world.  I have always said I vote Democratic because I'm not rich enough or uncaring enough to be a Republican.  Now I'm voting Democratic because I believe the very survival of my country is at stake.  Four more years of the likes of Bush, Cheney and Gramm will be our undoing -- which is what will happen if this nation elects McCain because he is made of their same cloth.