This is a question I, like everyone that I personally know, can answer instantly – especially in 2008’s foreclosure-filled climate. John McCain doesn’t seem to be able to answer this question off the top of his head.
At last week’s Saddleback Presidential Forum, Rick Warren asked John McCain, “On taxes, define rich…give me a number, a specific number. Where do you move from middle class to rich, is it 100,000, is it 50,000, is it 200?” McCain quantified the border between middle class and rich with “how about five million?”
When asked by Politico about the number of homes he owned, McCain replied:
I think – I’ll have my staff get to you. It’s condominiums where – I’ll have them get to you.
You know one way I define rich? If you have so many homes that you can’t keep track of them. Not only are you rich, you’re tragically out of touch.
And this is the guy that wants to cut his own taxes by $373,000 while giving miniscule tax relief to those actually struggling to keep their family’s one and only home. (All this while spending billions to perpetuate the war and balancing the budget by 2013. Amazing!)
Reports say that the McCains own between 7 and maybe 13 homes. That means that the bank could foreclose on five homes and he’d still have multiple residency options.
Some republicans have grumbled that Obama’s spending on a posh campaign jet is evidence that he will apply a cavalier attitude towards government spending. Shouldn’t those same people reach the same conclusion about a man who is so wealth he doesn’t even bother to keep track of the number of homes that he owns?
It didn’t seem to matter to Democrats that John Kerry had/has $29 million worth of homes , five of them at last count. I don’t care what someone else “has”, jealousy and avarice are unattractive qualities in a person. If you point is that it makes him “out of touch” then why wasn’t John “out of touch”, goose and gander.
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p>I have two homes. One to live in, one to rent-out until I have college tuitions to pay – then it’s SOLD.
Just laughable that the guy can’t remember how many homes he owns, especially in light of “elitism” charges from McCain fans.
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p>Look, if I thought McCain was a good candidate and would do a competent job, it wouldn’t care if he didn’t remember his ten homes. But this does weaken any case McCain wants to make about his opponent being “out of touch”.
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p>McCain can forget about all the homes he wants, just don’t try to tell me he “gets” the middle class and the challenges they face this election cycle.
Insert “Liberals Totally Miss the Point on Elitism” speech here.
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p>Frankly, I go more for the addled forgetfulness displayed than the seething class resentment of rich people, which puts the liberal in a rather unflattering light, to put it mildly.
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p>This really is incoherent. Honestly. It makes not sense either as sentence or scatter phrases in some stream-of-conservative elegy.
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p> you’ve devolved into random declensions. Please stop, before you hurt yourself.
Of why Republican “elitism” charges score devastating body blows on Democratic candidates among moderates and independents, and Democratic “elitism” charges don’t.
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p>The most common eaction among the liberal-leaning to this phenomenon: “We’ll the people are stupid, then!” just creates a feedback loop.
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p>Where is this ‘good example’ to which you obliquely assume? The phrase “A good example why…” needs a predicate that is the actual example…
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p>And “charges” can’t “score ” nor can they be ‘among’ any candidates… unless they are physical ‘charges’… like a bomb. I’m certain that’s not what you meant…
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p>
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p>Why would any liberals lean towards that phenomenon? And to which ‘phenomena’ are referring? UFO’s? Yeti? The, as-yet unamed ‘good example’? And why would they then say “[we all] people are stupid” ???
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p>A cursory pass of the above sentence (sic) through my ancient (mid-70’s) Ronco parse-o-matic* provides the following translation:
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p>”somewhere there’s a good example of a liberal mosh-pit where Republican elitists are electrically charged. Liberals lean into this phenomenon and come out admitting to stupidity… They do this again and again and again… ”
…
A second pass through the parse-o-matic broke it…
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p>* early Artificial Intelligence prototype…
McCain is rich, and therefore elitist. This doubtles will cost him greatly in the campaign.
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p>”Hey, you snivelly morons in Kansas, stop clinging to your stupid religion and guns and whatever other crap you think might be important. Put down the hot dish and stop square dancing for thirty seconds so that we can tell how to improve your pathetic existence. Vote for us!”
… are you trying to set some kind of record?
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p>McCain is willfully ignorant of issues of wealth and poverty and expects to get a pass for it because of A) who he is, and 2) whom it is he shares a bed. Further, he expects all of us to genuflect when he farts in order that we may sniff it before it dissipates just because he was once tortured.
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p>He is therefore elitist. You are too, if you expect me to smell a fart and call it a flower…
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p>
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p>No, it’s more likely thus:
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p>”Um, hello… Yoo-hoo! Over here… yes. Over here… Hi. Um, I don’t know how to tell you this… but… um… It’s not raining. No. That’s George Bush and John McCain pissing down your neck… They only told you it was rain. Uh huh. Yes. I know that’s gross. I just thought you should no so that you can tell them to stop it…”
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p>
Then someone can write a book about where it all went wrong. What’s Wrong with Missouri?
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p>Really, all of the things you complain about with McCain have nothing to do with his being a rich guy. You say that grousing about his being rich is an easier to do than pointing out these issues in substance; I disagree that any but liberals are inclined to find moral failings in wealth.
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p>However, as this discussion has proceeded, I am beginning to think that useless and counter-productive “rich-baiting” might actually be a useful cover for pointing out that McCain is a senile old coot in a manner that preserves deniability to the AARP.
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p>”Why, we weren’t claiming that old people are too feeble and senile to be President, we were showing that McCain is morally unfit to be President in these hard economic times because he is wealthy, and contrasts unfavorably with Obama, who is so poor that he knows exactly how much real estate he bought from Mr. Rezko.”
CMD is referring to what he perceives to be social elitism. I believe his understanding of the GOP playbook is that someone can be rich but a regular guy (W supposedly is this type of person), whereas you seem to assume that being rich automatically makes one “elitist”.
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p>CMD also, I think, is saying that an attack on McCain as a befuddled old coot is more effective, in his mind, than this charge of elitism, which he doesn’t find convincing anyway on its face.
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p>I have to say, I lean toward CMD here. Anyone who can offer up his wife for the Miss Buffalo Chip contest is not an elitist, but is certainly at a minimum woefully out of touch, or a cretin, and either way unfit to be the President.
…interesting points.
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p>I think CMD is just not putting the effort in. That he needs you to translate for him is… kinda wrong.
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p>In any event, the deeper voodoo at play here isn’t whether McCain is this or Obama is that: it’s the skillful use of the Republicans own pathologies against their opponents. I think that Freud, should he have been able to see such naked reaction formation he be both amazed at the brazenness of it, and stunned by its use as a weapon. The charges against Obama are the deepest desires and sharpest anxieties the McCain camp has about themselves. I think that McCain may in fact exist in a more or less befuddled state because, as has been posited elsewhere, he’s not in charge of his campaign… It’s jumped the rails and he’s just sorta hanging on with a deathgrip hoping desperately to survive lonog enough to grab the prize.
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p>
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p>That’s a fair point.
If you went through every blog, diary and post to analyze just their syntax and subject/predicate agreement alone, you would be here (and everywhere else on the internet) all day/every day.
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p>I’m not even talking about the strengths/weaknesses of an argument, I’m talking about if you get the “gist” of what somebody is saying, respond to that.
…perhaps judicious application of decaf is warranted?
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p>Jus’ havin a little fun with him since he obviously wasn’t putting any effort into responding… I did not, however, wish to awaken the fury of the Irish so I’ll stop now.
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p>Slainte mhath!
I understand that Republicans argue that elitism is your attitude, not how much money you have.
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p>But thinking you need to make $5M a year to be rich covers both!
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p>Obama is elitist because he’s a smarty pants. Apparently Republicans think this is worse than being elitist because of inherited money, which is ironic coming from a crowd that professes to believe in meritocracy.
Everyone thinks they’re middle class. BFD.
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p>In any event, your second paragraph is a distortion (exactly as predicted by the candidate) of what he said, which could have been better phrased as “That is a totally irrelevant distinction unworthy of a response. We will not raise anyone’s taxes, rich or poor, so that everyone can be richer than they are now.” This would have touched all of the conservative erogenous zones better. This McCain, not so good on his feet, though.
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p>Your third paragraph is 100% correct. Unfortunate, yes, but correct. The American electorate is not offended by wealth. That is the field on which the candidates play, and I hope that Obama gets around to playing it as it lies, rather than how he wishes it would lie.
OK, I get it, it was a joke. Ha ha.
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p>OK, so McCain’s not going to raise taxes. How is he going to convince me that this will not result in shifting the tax burden to my kids? Wars cost more than earmarks do.
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p>We went to war and got a tax cut (I saved a lot, making me richer. Yay). That shouldn’t happen.
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p>How are we going to get sustainably rich when so much of our debt is in foreign hands? How are we going to play hardball with China when they could destroy our currency any time they wish (which would be painful for them, too, but moreso for us)? Check this out from the Bank for International Settlements:
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p>Sweet.
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p>The Republicans’ borrow-and-spend policies are much more offensive to me than tax-and-spend. Tax-and-spend is at least honest.
Excellent points, all. Far better indeed than “He has a lot of houses, and is so rich he doesn’t care how many.”
But the other story is probably an easier sell. And not wholly irrelevant- it’s not that he’s wealthy, it’s that he’s wealthy and seeks to rule in a time of financial upheaval, and promotes policies that basically say “good luck” to the working class.
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p>I mean, the man had Phil Gramm as an economic adviser. That offends me not because of the “mental recession” and whining comments, but his history of pushing the kind of deregulation that basically guarantees market failure. Enron loophole, anyone?
I think it only sells liberals.
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p>Everyone else thinks “Wow, he’s rich. Good for him.”
McCain acquired his wealth by marrying it, and as a topper started in with his current wife while still married to his crippled wife.
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p>But only liberals care about character…
But then again, John Kerry, like Obama and unlike Bush and McCain, suffered from the impression that he looks down his nose at most of middle America.
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p>The same rules do not apply to each candidate. Each has to play the hand he is dealt. That hand is that Obama is vulnerable on this “elitism” thing, as silly as it might be, (and has been getting killed over it all summer long)and McCain (like most, but not all, Republicans) just isn’t.
Different candidates operate in different environments, yes.
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p>But how much of your contentions about Obama and McCain are conventional wisdom, and how much is based on reality? I know we hear that Obama is weak on the elitism thing, and McCain is not, but what’s the basis for that? I’m not saying that is or isn’t the case, but I’m not aware of any data that supports it. How many points has the elitism thing cost Obama vs. McCain? How many people characterize Obama as elitist vs. McCain? It’s like the daily reports that the stock market is up/down based on this or that factor. It’s all BS conventional wisdom. Anyone who understands the market that well isn’t talking, they’re in Greenwich, CT.
since Obama left for his world tour, and its effectiveness can be measured in the jitteriness threads here.
1. For the past two months, tracking polls like Gallup show a very consistent pattern- McCain tops at 44-45, which is Obama’s floor. McCain oscillates from 40-44 or so, Obama from 44-49. Not a really great place to be, but it doesn’t support the “Obama is tanking” narrative.
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p>Consider this:
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p>That was from August 3rd. What happened after that? Obama opened a lead for again, now they are back together.
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p>2. The jitteriness is coming from some polls that show a tigher race, and a media that has no other story to push right now. When did Obama look like a shoe-in? Obama sure looked better at 538 about a month ago, but he’s hardly cooked.
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p>Statistical noise + no breaking news -> BS.
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p>3. Principle point of attack? I thought it was tire pressure gauges, patriotism, and taxes. Sure, elitism is in the mix, but show me a principal components analysis that supports your assertion that this particular attack is effective. It may be, but your argument is purely speculative.
But how about this:
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… I hadn’t heard that particular statistic on TV at all.
Do you think the 73% of people with negative views of the economy are really thinking, “bully for McCain, he found a rich 2nd wife”?
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p>What is the factual basis for your contention?
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p>Seems like every conservative I know thinks most government workers are grafting from the government, why should wealthy Senators get off easy while teachers and police officers don’t?
Hopefully, Obama has better strategists than this.
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p>The economy is bad, so therefore we should take up the pitchforks and attack rich people? What, is this 1932? Why should people’s view of the economy influence their view of McCain’s wife?
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p>If you want them to go for the resentment of the elitist rich guy angle, you might as well start planning how the Democratic Congress can slow down President McCain’s agenda.
I do strategy work for supply chains, not political candidates; there is a reason for that.
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p>Nonetheless, you don’t answer my question and misconstrue my argument.
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p>You argue that non-liberals are overjoyed with McCain’s financial “success”, even as they suffer.
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p>This isn’t about soaking the rich. This is about taking the keys away from those who a) are rich and therefore b) don’t feel the pain most others are and c) have indicated several times that they don’t feel the pain, while d) employing advisors who both say that people feeling economic pain are whiners and had a hand in causing that pain.
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p>McCain is welcome to his money. No one is going after Mitt Romney for being rich right now.
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p>I think there is a strong argument to be made, though, that a McCain presidency does not serve the personal economic interests of most people; one reason for this is that because he’s rich and has demonstrated he’s out of touch and listens to people who are happy to push policy that favors the well-off (did I mention Phil Gramm)?
also makes him look old, if you believe it is genuine forgetfulness, or evasive if you believe it is reaganesque “forgetfulness”. either way, not very flattering.
when you stand to gain hundreds of thousands of dollars from your own proposals.
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p>John Kerry’s proposed policies weren’t going to put more money in his own pocket. McCain’s do.
But… I’ve read over and over here at BMG about the incredible wealth John married. He has so many homes he can’t remember them all. Is he really running for President so he can institute policies which will save him 373k? His wife made 6 million dollars last year. I really wonder what kind of difference it would make to a couple so wealthy.
McCain doesn’t need the 373k, any more than Phil Gramm did when we authored the Enron loophole while his wife was on the Enron board.
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p>It’s all about thinking that growth in the wealth of their peers/fundraisers/lobbyists translates to real economic growth that helps “make everyone rich[er]”. Sometimes yes, more often, no.
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p>I didn’t have a strong opinion on this issue as of a couple months ago (I supported Obama strongly enough for other reasons), but it’s become abundantly clear to me that McCain doesn’t give a crap about or understand the working stiff. If the free market (with all attendant forms of well-documented, real-word market failure) doesn’t put food on your table, it’s ’cause you suck, good luck.
It’s sorta like building a McMansion in Western Mass with a large primary house in eastern mass, then campaigning on a Lower Property Taxes! platform.
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p>Hypothetically, of course.
CMD, Gary has given you an excellent argumentative arrow for your quiver.
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p>McCain out of touch is a much better negative argument than McCain rich.
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p>Which is it:
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p>”It doesn’t matter”.
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p>”It matters”.
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p>???
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p>If it doesn’t matter then you ought to stand up to McCain and his ilk when they try to say it about Obama.
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p>If it does matter, then you ought to apply the same standards of fiscally prudent judgementalism to McCain as you do to Obama (and Kerry..)
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p>
Demmies are the good guys, Republicans are the bad guys. You have to be more fair to the dems. Only democrats can molest, steal, and use patronage. And yes, before I get blasted, there are bad apples in the republican bucket too. Admit it office-holders, there is really no difference bwtween you.
Remember the windsurfing picture? (Which I didn’t understand at the time, because I thought windsurfing was more proletariat than yachting)
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p>Remember that Bush got elected because he seemed like he’d be more fun to have a beer with?
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p>McCain is very much at risk of being “out of touch” in the same way that GHWB revealed the same when he was fascinated by the grocery store scanner.
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p>This debate of “does matter”, “doesn’t matter” is silly; what matters is the narrative that most voters buy into; these are very much character-based, and very much matter.
Unable to count the locations of homes, shows McCain is quite wealthy and doesn’t really care enough to know; unable to know the location of one’s siblings shows the same thing.
I’m estranged from at least 4 (that I know of) siblings. It’s my fault my Dad wanted to plant his seed in various women in various locations around the country (let alone, a different continent)? That was out of my control, unlike say purchasing and owning assets,each costing hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars.
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p>Not to mention, did this estranged Obama sibling want contact with Obama? Obama did write about him in his book and met him in a 2006 trip to Kenya. If we were to make this tenuous comparison, at the very least, I bet Obama could tell you how many siblings he has and what their names are.
He has so much wealth he doesn’t bother to count the dollars. He appears not to care very much about the real estate count.
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p>You have estranged siblings and you don’t really care to know them. Mr. Obama appears to have at least one estanged sibling and seemed not to care very much about his whereabouts.
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p>All about indifference.
You don’t know that.
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p>Unlike houses, siblings and other human beings actually have a choice when it comes to how involved with another person’s life they become.
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p>Well said.
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p>And, again unlike houses, any ‘estrangement’ on the part of siblings is more likely to derive from choices made by third parties (‘rents, guardians and family court… oh my!) It’s kinda like how political debates are the result of media bias… sigh.
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p>And I will point out how adroitly Gary switched the debate from being about McCain and his clearly demonstrated failings to Obama and his purported failings. Sigh.
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p>Let me re-re-frame the debate:
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p>McCain is a grumpy old fuck, with clearly deficient morals and the lowest, cheapest, sleaziest of associates. These associates and he are constantly in competition to see who can first reach the bottom. Constant digging creates a continually renewed and ever-deeper bottom. Recurse.
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p> There is nothing whatsoever to recommend John McCain to the post of local dog catcher, never mind leader of the free* world. He is a vapid, hard-hitting dumbass.
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p>Of course, he will be elected president and the great conservative cognitive dissonance machinery will simply collapse under the weight of his (perceived**) betrayals. Lose lose for all concerned
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*some restrictions apply. Not valid for all foreigners living abroad and not applicable to any and all electronic and non-electronic communications. Torture may apply.
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p>** he has to have morals and an ethical compass in order to actually enact a betrayal… but since that is how he is viewed that’s what will be perceived. ‘course, I could be wrong. I thought the same about Dubya…. sigh.
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p>Someone to go to the slums; find out names, then go back to Washington and do nothing.
Obama wrote in Dreams from my Father that he saw his half-brother George when George was five years old, and regretted it because the boy couldn’t understand the relationship and seemed unsettled by the meeting. To the best of my knowledge, that was his last contact with George, although George says he again saw him briefly when Obama visited Kenya as a U.S. Senator.
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p>Unless you have solid evidence that Obama actually effectively abandoned his half-brother, you shouldn’t state the supposition as fact, in my opinion.
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p>Might I also suggest that you buy this excellent book, so that you are better informed about Obama’s biography, and arm your normally extremely cogent comments with more accurate facts about Obama.
Obama’s dad got around even more than John McCain.
How can we distract people from the bad Obama poll numbers
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p>This is getting good!
As you’ll recall, National Popular Vote is not yet the law. Until it is, these are the only polls that matter. And they’re looking pretty good for Obama. Thanks for your concern, though!
That picture doesn’t show the trend in those light blue, light red, and yellow states. Clicking through these states show a trend that ought to cause a bit more concern than your comment suggests. The national polls on white dudes, Hillary voters and independents are similarly not all good news.
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p>He’s going to need to change the game soon. The McCain camp is defining Obama, and he is not defining McCain. Maybe the conventions change the game.
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p>On the other hand, much of his effort and investment is reputed to be in the “ground game” which may or may not show up in polls, so perhaps that is a reason to be optimistic.
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p>But it sure is shaping up to be a case in which McCain’s Bush handicap is balanced by the various disadvantages faced by the Democrats, including but not limited to the “history making, precedent setting” aspects of their candidate. Which means that it will all boil down, again, to razor-thin margins in Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, and Florida.
whats it going to be in 2 weeks
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p>just “ok”
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p>You know David, for a progresive, you really can get all in a tizzy quite easily. I know your not worried but.
Yawn
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p>So the race is close now, just like 3-4 weeks ago.
Really rich. Buying a house to him is like buying a car is to us. Can you really remember how many cars you have?
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p>Oh.
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p>Well, it’s like buying a snowblower. Can you actually remember how many snowblowers –
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p>You can?
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p>OK, it’s like buying sneakers. Who can remember how many sneakers they have?
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p>You’re kidding. Really?
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p>McCain buying a house is like us buying a pair of socks. Don’t tell me you know how many socks you own. That’s it! It’s just like buying socks, got it?
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p>.
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p>.
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p>.
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p>Anybody want to buy some snowblowers?
That why I said this is a better example of being addled than it is of being “out of touch.”
By making such a big deal of this, they can seem like they are engaging in the usual liberal pap about Republicans, like Bush and the price of milk or supermarket scanners, but really emphasizing that McCain is ancient, addled, and senile.
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p>I guess we’ll see where letterman and leno land to see how iot worked.
And remembering how many toothpicks are left in the box.
A townhouse in the ‘burbs.
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p>I’m pretty sure the bank actually owns it, should they ever get mad at me.
maybe he just didn’t take the question seriously? I doubt he really doesn’t know how many homes he has. The man is senile, but I have to give him a little credit.
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p>And what is up with the Obama ad? Talk about leaving yourself wide open.
McCain could have both answered and dismissed the insipid question by saying “One. Next?”
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p>Obama was splurging with the hard earned nickles and dimes of the faithful.
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p>The McCains were spending their own money.
If you want to get technical about it, the McCain’s are actually spending John Hensley’s (Cindy McCain’s dad) hard-earned money. She inherited it when he died in 2000.
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p>While McCain’s Senate salary is nothing to sneeze at, it’s certainly not enough to afford seven homes.
The money’s hers, period.
They didn’t earn it. They inherited his hard-earned money. Big difference.
Interesting…
…with your eyes closed again?
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p>Don’t trip!