McCain Campaign: Open Mouth, Insert Economic Surrogate

Ooops. Looks like U.S. Sen. John McCain's economic campaign surrogate Carly Fiorina didn't get this morning's talking points.

As you may recall, Fiorina used to head up Hewlett Packard. According to a report by Huffington Post's Sam Stein, Fiorina, appearing on a local St. Louis radio talk show, was asked if Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had the experience to run a company such as Hewlett Packard.

"Do you think [Sarah Palin] has the experience to run a major company, like Hewlett Packard?" asked the host.

"No, I don't," responded Fiorina. "But you know what? That's not what she's running for."

Fiorina tried quickly to recover, but with Wall Street in shambles and the economy the central focus of the presidential campaign, for one of McCain's highest-profile economic surrogates to say that Palin -- who would be just one basis point away from the presidency -- couldn't run a major company, much less oversee the U.S. economy, could be a serious problem (kind of like when another McCain economic adviser, Phil Gramm, said America was a nation of "whiners.")

Listen to Fiorina's stumble here: