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It all started with a gaffe from McCain in which he said he didn’t know how many homes he and his wife owned. After that statement, the Obama campaign wasted no time in producing an ad criticizing McCain as out of touch and some kind of rich elitist who didn’t have to know how many homes he owned.
Here is the story from Yahoo News:
WASHINGTON - John McCain may have created his own housing crisis. Hours after a report that the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting didn’t know how many homes he and his multimillionaire wife own, Democratic rival Barack Obama launched a national TV ad and a series of campaign stops aimed at portraying McCain as wealthy and out of touch.
With the economy ranking as the top issue in the race, Obama sought to turn McCain’s gaffe into one of those symbolic moments that stick in voters’ minds.
Think John Kerry sailboarding or the first President Bush wowed by a grocery store checkout scanner, Michael Dukakis riding in a tank or Gerald Ford eating a tamale with the husk still on.
“I think — I’ll have my staff get to you,” McCain told Politico when asked Wednesday how many houses he owns. “It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.”
Later, the McCain campaign told Politico that McCain and his wife, Cindy, have at least four in three states — Arizona, California and Virginia. Newsweek recently estimated the two owned at least seven properties.
Last week McCain cracked that being rich in the U.S. meant earning at least $5 million a year. With most Americans feeling the pinch of a worsening economy, the remarks allow Democrats to suggest that McCain cannot relate to ordinary voters.
Campaigning in Chester, Va., Obama told voters, “I guess if you think being rich means you’ve got to make $5 million and if you don’t know how many houses you have, it’s not surprising you might think the economy is fundamentally strong.” He returned to the McCain remark later, saying of teachers: “Most teachers hold themselves accountable. They didn’t go into teaching to make money. They don’t have seven houses.”
Here is the ad released by the Obama campaign:
Finally, here’s the ad released as a response by the McCain campaign:
Neither ad strikes me as being effective or convincing. In fact, this appears to be nothing more than a complete and utter waste of my time for even reporting on the topic. There are more pressing issues and it seems a little hypocritical to me on the part of the Obama campaign for trying to make this an issue when Obama personally denounced McCain for his “Celeb” ad.
So sound off below, does this matter and do you care?
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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I thought Obama’s ad despite it looking like they’re trying to find any shit that sticks, was quite good. McCains ad was utterly pointless. I think the whole ‘guilt by association’ card McCains team is trying to pull is ridiculous.
This is ridiculous. Who cares how many houses they have. People are constantly making excuses for their wealth. Why? If you have earned your financial success, then be proud and embrace it. It’s called Capitalism and it’s a great concept.
Stalin, I concur.
Hey Pudding,
now I’ll admit you could call me partisan if you like but you have to be kidding right ?
You think Obama being tied in with a man who made 14 million dollars in tax payer money from his association and dealings with Obama is just guilt by association ? and you see that spot as being more ridiculous then Obama crying about how many houses the McCains have ? come on now
I would imagine that Senator McCain was trying to avoid getting caught up in a gaff, some of the homes are in his wifes name and some are residences held for family members & he knew that Obama’s team would jump all over it if he said the wrong number… this was a wasted question by the interviewer (who cares how many houses they have, How many does Kerry have or the Kennedys?) The fact that Obama is tied to Resko does give me some pause as it shows a lack of judgment in his associates & buisness dealings, coupled with some of his past associations… well lets just say it looks like he not a good judge of character. His lack of experience is even more disturbing, (pulling the party line or voting present & changing policy with the polls does not instill confidence in his leadership skills) I think he should spend some more time representing his constituents as a Senator. McCain although not my favorite out of the primaries is the better of the two for the job, Period.
All these poll numbers are baseless ‘cuz people will start paying attention once the debates are on the way.
I think Obama campaign should better articulate that it is not the wealth of the McCains that is an issue but the fact that McCain cannot keep track of his assets, how can he run the whole economy then?
I think this is unimportant and pointless - and hits home to me as well. If you asked my husband to tell you one holding in our stock portfolio or walk the plank, the poor man would have to woalk the plank. Obviously, the bulk of the McCain’s combined wealth is mostly Cindy’s, and is controlled either by Cindy herself or her financial advisors.
As to the ads, Obama’s is silly because it addresses something equally silly. Pudding, McCain’s is not irrelevant. It goes to the character and credibility of the candidate.
And one more thing, I seem to remember a little oops on Obama’s part for some stock holdings that didn’t seem quite on the up and up, and his defense was he had no idea what he owned.
As to the $5 million being rich quip, that’s all it was, and anyone who was listening tot eh forum or read the transcript knows it. In fact, McCain predicted it would be picked up as an Obama talking point.
I’m with you, Nate, this was a waste of time, but Obama did open the door McCain to remind us of Obama’s bad judgment in who he gets into a financial bed with. I believe Obama’s word for it was “bone headed”.
You know McCain has his shady characters too.Like Raph Reed,
He still works for him.check it out;
http://newsproject.org/node/112
There is nothing wrong with making money.I have a problem with hypocrites. People that get paid to fix the system.And someone who calls someone else an elites when they live like one themselves.
Besides barrack only made $4 million last year . According to their standards he is still middle class.*LOL*
Well, actually, I think something to pull away from this is that Obama’s once again on the assault. He did this once before in the primaries when Clinton still had an insurmountable lead, and now, once again, he’s making pretty harsh and direct attacks on McCain, not the subtle, indirect ones he’s been using for the past few months.
Which means he’s getting more worried about McCain, pretty much.
In terms of the actual validity and efficacy of the attacks, I think that both of their ads actually detract from their own images. After I watched Obama’s, I just thought it was sad- nitpicking over such a minute details, and McCain’s attempt to bring up Rezko again is just insipid.
Well like Hoolgan mentioned Kerry. Kerry is loaded and his windsurfing photos was used to paint him as an elitist. Not one of us.
There has been a lot of attempts to paint Obama as an Elitist or “not one of us”
I’m sure donald trump may not know how much property he has either. But anyone who wears $500 shoes and doesn’t know how much property they have should probably stop with the elitist “he’s not one of us” attacks.
This is just a counter attack.
If it is stupid then it is just as stupid as the non - issue ads that McCain has been launching that he has been getting praises for. Obama tried to just counter by pointing out that he will not talk about issues he will only talk about non issues. Then he would fire pack with policy attacks. Guess what it didn’t work.
But this is what the people want isn’t it? They want a fight of things which have nothing to do with the issues at all. Politicians are going to go by what the people want and an indicator of that is the polls. Kerry tried that and failed miserably.
This is stupid versus stupid. But stupid has been working for McCain. Time to change strategy and get stupid. They shouldn’t cry about it. They started it.
Dreadsen,
before we submit that Obama is right on McCain not talking about the issues let’s remember that it is Obama who will not met McCain in a town hall format where issues/topics
would be dictated by the audience in attendance. I believe it’s Obama who is afraid of a format in which he may have to discuss the issues with someone who can bring the counter point.
McCain is the one who asked to debated, what was it ? every week at a different location and it was Obama who once said he welcomed talking about the issues with McCain anytime any place. Wonder what happened to that ?
Actually Todd, neither of them seem to want to debate issues. McCain challenged Obama to a whopping 10 townhall debates. Obama said he would accept 2 of those in addition to 4 debates in a traditional format, and McCain rejected proposal that without explanation.
So as a result we’re going to see a grand total of… 2 debates and 1 townhall debate. And the VPs will meet once and square off. Personally I thought Obama and Hillary debated a few more times than was helpful (they ran out of serious issues to discuss early on). By contrast it seems like these two are avoiding each other.
I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say these ads are pointless and unwarranted. McCain is showing the company Obama keeps and Obama is merely pointing out that somebody who loses track of how many houses he/she owns can’t possible understand what it’s like to be in a pinch.
I will say, that these are lower priority issues. The canidates need to be talking about all of the issues at home that we are experiecing. The economy, High gas prices, healthcare, IRAQ, education, our failing infrastructure … ect … instead of these issues.
However, to be perfectly fair, I think for the most part, these ads(and all ads for that matter) are not for those who have already chosen a side, but for those that are still on the fence. I doubt anybody who feels strongly for a candidate will look at these ads and say “Geesh, I will reconsider”. Highly unlikely ….
The more this continues on, the more I feel like I’m picking between a douche bag and a turd sandwich. Both stink, and neither will do good for our country.
It’s just a question of which one will do the least amount of damage?
-kc
This is what I get from all these comments:
1) If McCain asks Obama to do smth, like meet and talk on certain conditions, then Obama says no, let’s do it this way, then Obama is afraid?
2) If McCain cries “Obama is stupid!” and then Obama cries “No, it’s McCain who is stupid”, then Obama is stupid?
JACKEY,
You can put the Obama spin on if you like. The fact is that during the Democratic process Obama said he would debate McCain anytime any place and with few pre conditions. Forgive me but I thought that meant anytime and any place.
I don’t believe any candidate has called the other stupid. Fact is you Obama folks cannot handle the fact he isn’t the
anti politician he says he is and you have no excuse as to why he backed out of his initial stance on where and when he would debate.
Indi I agree we should have more debates but since Obama is in his environment with the “normal” format his proposal dictates that out of 6 debates 4 be in his format. If he wanted to be fair and let the folks decide he would agree to do 3 in his and 3 in McCain’s, but that ain’t gonna happen is it.
Remember this when/if McCain gets a lead in the polls, it will be Obama wanting more debates then. I hope you can see the problem with it should McCain decline to do so.
Todd, I clearly said Obamas campaign was finding any shit that sticks. Republicans though for some time have been doing that, finding ‘any shit that sticks’, ‘guilt by association’ which is ridiculous.
I agree that Obama and McCain should have had some debates by now and you’re right that if/when McCain gets ahead in the polls Obama will be wanting those debates. I think Obama is going to leave it too little too late.
Todd
Yes you are making sense when saying that McCain’s rebuttal should have been. “okay lets have 3 your way and 3 my way”.
But McCain did not do this. And he never addressed why accepting Obama’s offer of 2 or 3 town halls wasn’t acceptable. Remember McCain also wanted to ride to each of the debates with Obama. He has a lot of preconditions. But one thing about town hall is what if ALL Obama supporters show up? McCain could actually be whooping him and it will still sound like he is losing. Or the questions could be easy on Obama and harsh on McCain. With out the General Public knowing how the audience was composed it could be bad for either one depending on how it’s stacked. And i believe there have been some town halls where only supporters for the One candidate showed up. I think this is why the issue died. Or mabye McCain camp figured that they could do better by not addressing Obama’s rebuttal by slamming him with ads. If so it was a good political move because those ads shot those numbers waaay down.
Todd, Obama did propose more debates in the traditional style than in townhalls. Maybe that’s a little bit unreasonable. But is it less reasonable than McCain’s proposal which was 10 debates, ALL in townhalls? You can’t honestly believe it’s just Obama slowing this process down, McCain purposefully made a proposal he knew wasn’t going to be accepted, and then rejected the counter-proposal.
As you pointed out, he did say anytime and anyplace, but he’s also rejected Obama’s proposal - so clearly there were more preconditions than he suggested. I guess they both fear they have too much to lose from debates, because if either one of them was eager, we’d already have seen a few by now.
Amen Stalin!!! I was actually disappointed to see that the value of all 7 houses was only $13 million. It seems like a modest figure to me. Anyways…who are we to judge someone’s investments? This is America where we claim to be capitalist, but instead we stand in line to bash someone else’s fortune instead of saying “Damn, I wish that was my biggest problem”. We should all be so lucky to have that “issue”.
I think when Kerry ran in 2004 he was worth several times more than what McCain is worth now. And God knows how many properties Gore, Edwards or even the Clintons have.
If you’re rich and help the poor then fantastic, I think Cindy McCain does do a fair bit of charity work.
Funny thing is that it was Kerry’s wife as well that has all the money…