Word: gramm
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...next challenge will be to keep his message fresh. His gibe at Congress--"Cut their pay and send them home"--lost much of its punch when Republicans took over the House and Senate in January. Says Charlie Black, a senior adviser to Gramm: "While Lamar is out talking about turning federal programs back to the states, his two principal competitors are in the Senate actually doing it." Black adds, "'I don't work in Washington' is an address, not a message...
...once a Republican opponent emerges. "Politics is a binary game," says Mike McCurry, the White House press secretary. "There are winners and losers, and the choice will be between Clinton and someone who offers a contrasting vision." In the comparison of his vision against Bob Dole's or Phil Gramm's, Clinton's aides believe their man becomes credible again...
Maybe he just can't help himself. Phil Gramm, the Robespierre of the Republican right and a man with a startlingly real shot at the presidency, just can't seem to avoid making people mad. That includes his wife Wendy Lee Gramm, whose first meeting with him tells you almost everything you need to know about the temperament of the senior Senator from Texas...
They met in 1969, when Gramm, then a professor of economics at Texas A&M, was interviewing her for a teaching position. Gramm started flirting with her during the interview, while his alarmed colleagues cautioned him to back off. Gramm persisted. "When she got through with the interview, I walked out the door with her and helped her on with her coat," he says. "And I said, 'As a single member of the faculty, I'd be especially interested in your coming to Texas A&M.' She looked up at me and said, 'Yuk!'" Undeterred, Gramm returned to his colleagues...
...roughshod courtship of his wife and in his rise to power in the Senate, the essential Gramm is on display. He is driven, instinctive and fanatically goal-oriented; he is often insensitive to appearances and unwilling to listen to his peers, teeming with self-confidence and uncannily able to get what he wants. He has been underestimated at every step of his career. Even as he sits on a political war chest larger than that of any of his opponents, leads the field in endorsements from congressional colleagues, and has won six consecutive Republican Party straw polls--in Arkansas, Louisiana...