Whoops! Surrogates’ comments trip candidates

Surrogate alert! Barack Obama’s wife quipped that a $600 tax stimulus check could be used for a pair of earrings.

The same day, a John McCain surrogate dismissed economic woes from a nation of “whiners.”

Those gaffes — and even references to castration and Viagra — illustrated a week of tabloidlike “Oh, no, he didn’t!” coverage that are the latest examples of how the men who want to be president are taking hits for others’ words and people they can’t control.

“Surrogates gone wild” is no laughing matter for Mr. Obama or Mr. McCain, who each have been sidetracked from their preferred agendas and asked to respond to — or apologize for —kerfuffles from mouths other than their own.

Michelle Obama said in Pontiac, Mich., on Wednesday that if her husband is elected he will offer more than a “quick fix” on the economy.

“You’re getting $600 — what can you do with that? Not to be ungrateful or anything, but maybe it pays down a bill, but it doesn’t pay down every bill every month,” she said. “The short-term quick fix kinda stuff sounds good, and it may even feel good that first month when you get that check, and then you go out and you buy a pair of earrings.”

McCain surrogate Sen. Lindsey Graham blasted Mrs. Obama’s remarks in an interview with The Washington Times, saying, “I know $600 for a family in South Carolina can get kids ready for school, help with the gas bill and does make a difference for families trying to make ends meet.”

While surrogates like Mr. Graham can serve as willing and able attack dogs, they run the big risk of distracting from the candidate’s preferred theme of the day.

If a surrogate delivers the candidate’s message with even a nuance of difference, the opposing camp will pick it apart and e-mail the quote to the press.

For example: In May, the McCain campaign gleefully noted: “Over the past week, at least seven Obama advisers have contradicted Obama on unconditional meetings with rogue leaders.”

And if the surrogate goes completely off message, look out.

McCain economic adviser Phil Gramm on the same day Mrs. Obama joked about earrings told The Times that the sagging economy is a “mental recession” driven by the media for a “nation of whiners.”

Also this week, top advocates speaking for each White House hopeful have gone off the rails — from the Rev. Jesse Jackson saying he wanted to effectively castrate Mr. Obama to McCain adviser Carly Fiorina breaching a topic that embarrassed the man she works for — Viagra and birth control.

She told reporters it was unfair that insurance covers the man’s drug but not birth control, and when Mr. McCain was asked a follow up on his top female surrogate’s remarks, he demurred.

“I certainly do not want to discuss that issue,” he said before retreating into what a pool reporter described as “uneasy laughter.”

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