Obama '08: One Spouse, One House

Well, this has certainly been an interesting past few days while waiting for my exclusive (ZOMG!!!111) text from Senator Obama. After pretty much pulling even in most polls after a month of relentless negative advertising, Senator John McCain really went and put his $500 Italian leather loafer in his mouth when he botched this most simple of Q&As:

Q: How many houses do you have?
McCain: I'm not sure....I have to check with my staff. I'll have them get [the number] to you.

Wow...for a politician who is not shy about throwing the "elitist" label at his opponent, Senator McNopoly doesn't sound like a "man of the people" when he stumbles on the number of houses his family has.

The correct answer of course, is multiple houses.....reports vary from four to up to twelve properties that McCain and his wife own. The key words here being "his wife"

You see, my friends, Cindy Lou McCain (nee Hensley) is the heiress to an Arizona beer distributorship that is valued at $100 million dollars. When McCain dumped his disabled wife and three children to marry Cindy in 1980, he signed a prenup that clearly separated his finances from the Hensley family fortune. However, McCain also received a plum job at the distributorship and a healthy infusion of that beer money to fund his first run for Congress in 1982.

So, John McCain is married to a $100 million woman who owns up to 12 luxurious properties around the U.S., all in her name. McCain could have said, in effect, that he doesn't own a single piece of property in the U.S. Of course, he would have to explain that he's been riding a gravy train for the past 28 years and that "Mommy" owns him lock, stock and barrel....but that wouldn't sound too "Mavericky". It would sound like McCain handed over his testicles when he said "I do"

The McCain campaign's initial response to the kefluffle over "Housegate" was another in a disturbing series of exploitative references to what McCain himself has pledged he would never exploit for political gain:

[McCain spokesman Brian Rogers] also added: "This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," referring to the prisoner of war camp that McCain was in during the Vietnam War.

Wonderful...."leave my guy alone about the multiple mansions because he was shot down and held prisoner by the Viet Cong 40 years ago". The "noun, verb, POW" defense was also used to defend McCain against charges that he cheated during the evangelical forum he and Obama attended last weekend. What's that line about the well and dipping once too often?

What this amounts to is - while McCain has spent over a month battering Obama with negative ads and speeches attacking him on any number of platforms ("elitist", "celebrity", "no experience", "too exotic-looking" for the Appalachian regions) and has succeeded in raising Obama's negatives in polling, he hasn't focused on one line of attack that would serve to define Obama negatively in the voters' minds. And, yesterday, he handed the Obama campaign the one effective line of attack that would blunt McCain's claims of legitimacy and experience. Obama is already on TV with ads blistering McCain's "experience" of the last 30 years as enjoying the life of Riley on his wife's dime. Obama cannot rely on the common sense of the American voter by saying simply "I will end the war in Iraq, my opponent will continue it for 100 years"...he needs to knock McCain from his imaginary pedestal and reveal to the voters that the Maverick has no clothes (or, at least, any that weren't bought by Suga Momma Cindy).

So, remind me again - who's the elitist in this race? The guy raised by a single mother (at times, on food stamps) who went to Columbia and Harvard Law on merit scholarships? Or the son and grandson of Naval Admirals who married into a $100 million fortune, a sizable chunk of which has underwritten his political career, including this Presidential campaign?

It's a shame that all those millions in advertisting, consulting fees and strategy sessions to come up with an attack plan went up in smoke in the course of one afternoon. Pity.


UPDATE:
Oh thank God.....a bonafide and legitimate surrogate has emerged to defend Senator McLandBaron from these wicked attacks.......Robin Leach:

"He probably was confused as to which homes are in his name, his wife's name, or corporate names," Leach explained in his familiar, deep British baritone. "In his attempt to be honest, he put his foot in his mouth."

FUCKING CRAZIER UPDATE:
This shit is now officially Out. Of. Control.:

The McCains increased their budget for household employees from $184,000 in 2006 to $273,000 in 2007, according to John McCain's tax returns.

Holy shit.....am I to understand, if you consider the median household income in the United States in 2007 was $48, 201, that John McCain and Beer Money Cindy spent over five times as much on servants as the typical household earns in an entire year? Didn't shit like this lead to the French Revolution?