This was supposed to be the week John McCain unveiled his new campaign, more disciplined and acutely focused on the economy. Instead, a series of fumbles handed opportunities to Barack Obama. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-campaign12-2008jul12,0,5948913.story?page=2 McCain seemed to call Social Security a "disgrace," was struck wordless on video when asked whether insurance companies should have to pay for birth control and, perhaps most damagingly, had to deny his own advisor's assertion that, when it comes to the economy, America has become "a nation of whiners."He opened it with a town hall in Denver. His message went awry in the first hour, after a young woman expressed concern that Social Security might not survive for her peers. "Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today," he said, "And that's a disgrace...." Barely had Democrats seized on that comment when word surfaced that Carly Fiorina, a McCain advisor and the former head of Hewlett-Packard, had told a political breakfast in Washington that women -- a group the senator was courting this week -- were upset that some insurance companies covered Viagra but not contraception. Before long, McCain opponents pointed out that the senator had voted against bills that would have required insurers to cover birth control. McCain added to the contretemps when he told a reporter that he did not recall his vote. In a squirming response, replete with two long pauses, McCain neither offered the answer his campaign gave -- that he opposed all mandates -- nor expressed any familiarity with the issue Fiorina had raised two days earlier. "It's something that I had not thought much about," he said in a video reel that played for days on cable and online. The final difficulty arose the next day, when McCain economics advisor and former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm was quoted as saying that the country was whining about the economy. The danger for McCain is that his remark on Social Security and Gramm's on the economy could merge with earlier ones -- McCain's offhanded assertion that he didn't understand the economy as he should, his acknowledgment that some American troops could stay in Iraq for 100 years -- to define him. "The message is pretty confused, and it has been so throughout the campaign," said Dartmouth's Fowler. In a typical election year, she said, the comments might not register. But this year, with interest skyrocketing, "it may send a message that this is a guy who doesn't really know what he will do if he's president
