Former Texas Republican Sen. Phil Gramm late Friday stepped down as co-chair of Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign.

The former senator had been criticized for a remark in which he said that the economic slowdown was a “mental recession,” and that the U.S. was a nation of “whiners.” The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) had seized on the remark and used it for a barrage of attacks on Gramm and McCain.

“That kind of distraction hurts not only Sen. McCain's ability to present concrete programs to deal with the country's problems, it hurts the country,” Gramm said. “To end this distraction and get on with the real debate, I hereby step down as co-chair of the McCain campaign and join the growing number of rank-and-file McCain supporters.”

Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan responded by saying: “The question for John McCain isn’t whether Phil Gramm will continue as chairman of his campaign, but whether he will continue to keep the economic plan that Gramm authored and that represents a continuation of the polices that have failed American families for the last eight years.”