McCain "unsure how many houses he owns"

By Kathy G.

Asked by a reporter how many houses he owned, John McCain responded this way: "I think - I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told us in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where - I'll have them get to you."

According to Newsweek, the McCains own at least seven homes.

Here are some other things we know about McCain:

-- His taste for expensive shoes rivals Carrie Bradshaw's -- he favors $520 Ferragamos.

-- He doesn't think you can be considered "rich" unless you make at least five million dollars a year.

-- He is a son of privilege from an elite military family (his father and grandfather were admirals). Despite a mediocre academic record at his fancy prep school, he was admitted to the highly prestigious Naval Academy (those family connections do come in handy). At the Academy, he graduated fifth from the bottom of his class.

-- His abysmal record at the Academy notwithstanding, McCain was "offered the most sought-after Navy assignment -- to become an aircraft carrier pilot."  His instructor at flight school said that McCain was "positively one of the weakest students to pass our way," and McCain crashed five planes while he was there. Yet in spite of his poor performance, he continued to receive "plum assignments" throughout his military career.

-- He dumped his first wife, who, following an accident, had become disabled and lost her looks. The woman he dumped her for was Cindy Hensley, who was younger, prettier, and far richer than wife #1, and who just happened to be living in a Congressional district with an open seat. Cindy's money and connections would prove invaluable in advancing McCain's political career.

-- The McCains pay about $273,000 per year for their household staff of butlers and maids, and one of their children had an American Express card that permits a balance of up to $50,000 per year. Meanwhile, McCain pays only $18,000 per year in alimony to the loyal wife he abandoned.

-- Cindy, who has said she will "never" release her tax returns, is believed to have a net worth of over $100 million.  She owns at least one private jet; indeed, she's said  that "In Arizona, the only way to get around the state is by small private plane."

-- Cindy herself has a rather interesting history. She falsely claims she was her parents' only child, but in fact she has two half-sisters, one who is the daughter of her father, and the other who is the daughter of her mother. Cindy refuses to acknowledge either of these women. Kathleen Hensley Portalski, the product of Cindy's father's first marriage, was left only $10,000 by him in the will. Cindy inherited the rest of her father's multi-million dollar fortune. Kathleen, a working class woman who lives in a modest home, describes herself as "upset" by her sister's refusal to publicly acknowledge her, and also says it would have been "nice" if she had been "left some of the Hensley fortune."   

-- In 1994, it was discovered that Cindy McCain was addicted to painkillers and was stealing drugs from a charitable medical organization she ran. A former employee at the organization reported Cindy's suspicious behavior to the DEA, which began an investigation. An attorney affiliated with the McCains wrote to the local D.A., pressuring him to investigate the whistleblowing employee for extortion. No extortion charges were ever pressed, but the doctor who had written prescriptions for Cindy lost his medical license. Cindy got off very lightly for her crimes: a little community service plus a few counseling sessions, and that was it. But attorneys familiar with the case and with the drug laws say that if Cindy "had been a poor minority and not married to a U.S. senator, she likely would have been locked up."

-- Throughout his decades-long career in Washington, John McCain has been a strong advocate of economic policies that redistribute wealth upwards by giving tax breaks to corporations and the rich and inflicting deep cuts in spending for education, health care, infrastructure, and other essential services on the rest of us. His chief economic adviser is given to saying that the country is only in a "mental" recession and that Americans facing hardship because of the poor state of the economy are "whiners."

Put all this information together, and you'll see a pattern. John and Cindy McCain have led lives of extreme privilege. They have not had to work hard to get what they have. On the contrary: John McCain was able to gain admission to the best schools and land the best military assignments, in spite of being manifestly poorly qualified for them. The McCains have never lived like ordinary working people, and indeed, in both their personal behavior (Cindy's lack of generosity to her sister) and their politics, they have shown no empathy whatsoever for the struggles of ordinary working folks.

Unlike most people, when they've behaved badly, they have not had to pay the consequences. Cindy was a thief and a drug addict, but, in spite of our country's draconian drug laws, she avoided doing hard time. McCain was an abysmal student and an extremely undistinguished pilot, but that didn't prevent his rapid rise through the military ranks.

The McCain campaign has persisted in its sleazy attempts to assassinate the character of Barack Obama. He is, they claim, an elitist. He went to Ivy League schools. He was a law professor. He thinks Americans should learn foreign languages. Why, he even had the nerve to vacation in Hawaii!

But unlike the McCains, Barack and Michelle Obama never had anything handed to them. They had to work hard for everything they have. Barack Obama was raised by a single mom and grew up in a lower middle class home. His family sometimes struggled economically, and there were times his mother collected food stamps. Yes, Obama attended an elite high school, but he got there on a scholarship, and he lived in his grandparents' modest two-bedroom apartment while attending school. He went on to graduate from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, but he never would have been able to afford to study at those places without considerable financial aid. He also had a distinguished academic record, graduating magna cum laude from Harvard, where he was president of the law review. Unlike McCain, Obama has spent significant amounts of time with poor and working class people, most notably during the years when he was a community organizer in Chicago.

Also unlike McCain, Obama could certainly never be accused of marrying for money. Michelle Obama grew up in a working class family on the South Side of Chicago. Her parents never went to college and her father had a blue collar job with the city. Like Barack, Michelle worked hard and won admission to elite universities (in her case, Princeton and Harvard Law School). And like Barack, she paid for school by taking out student loans. In fact, it was only recently that the Obamas were able to finally pay off those student loans -- it was the money they made from Barack's two books that finally gave them the wherewithal to do so.

Now, there is no question that the McCain campaign's attacks on Barack Obama's "elitism" are simply class warfare by other means. What Tom Frank has referred to as "the latte libel" is an essential weapon in the conservative arsenal. The effete, latte-drinking snob is every bit as vital an element of conservative mythology as monocled, top-hat wearing plutocrats were to Communist propaganda. The right would have you believe that, no, you're not being oppressed by the CEO of the company you're working at, who makes 364 times as money as you; nor by the credit card companies bleeding you dry. And it isn't the moneyed special interests which are robbing this country blind and driving us into a ditch. It is, rather, those liberal elitists who are the root of all evil. In the contemporary conservative imagination, liberals serve the symbolic role that Jews play in the ideology of anti-Semites.

It's long past time that Barack Obama and the many of us who are his supporters start fighting back against these slimy smears. But instead of simply defending Obama against charges that he is an elitist, we need to turn the tables. We need to start asking a lot more questions about why Cindy McCain won't release her tax records. We need to be shining a harsh spotlight on McCain's opulent, pasha-like lifestyle: the private jets, the collection of mansions and the man's Carrie Bradshaw-like infatuation with fashionable yet insanely pricey footwear. Put them on the defensive for once, fer chrissakes.

And we need to put the focus of this race back where it belongs: squarely on economic concerns. Which candidate is it who fights for the economic interests of ordinary Americans? And which one has, throughout his many decades in Washington, been doing little except carrying water for corporate interests and the super-rich? Which one got where he is by working hard and playing by the rules, and which one got where he is by working his family's, and his wife's, wealth and connections? Which one can feel the pain of the increasing numbers of Americans feeling stressed out by debt, by the mortgage crisis, by the soaring costs of gasoline, health care and college tuition, by the upsurge in inflation and unemployment rates? And which one not only has never experienced economic distress himself, but is so clueless that he continues to take advice from a man who refers to economically distressed Americans as "whiners"? And also, by the way, has a campaign staff that is stuffed to the gills with lobbyists?

These are the distinctions that we need to be drawing, and this is the conversation that we need to be having. Not only because it would be politically helpful to our chosen candidate, but because economic security is, at bottom, what this election, like every other one, is all about. Where Barack Obama chooses to take a vacation has no bearing whatsoever on what kind of man he is and what kind of politics he supports. But the economic stresses, or lack thereof, that each candidate has personally experienced, or has witnessed others struggle with, and the kind of economic policies that each candidate supports, are vital and central. Do we want an America in which prosperity is shared, and all Americans enjoy a baseline economic security, and real opportunity? Or do we want an America of ever-increasing upward redistribution of wealth, soaring economic inequality, and deep and pernicious double standards -- one for rich people and the moneyed interests, and one for everyone else?

That is what this election is ultimately about. And we all need to do our best to be damn sure every voter in America well knows it.

Comments

[WestIndianArchie]

Great post!

[Rollinson]

This is a problem for McCain in part because it's just the sort of thing that can be translaed into an easy joke on Leno, et al; in other words, it can trickle down to even those not paying much attention. And the jokes can go in one of two directions, both harmful: that he's a rich bastard or he's so old he can't remember.

The coup de gras however is: "This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison."

That's the campaign's response. My god, they are flirting with self-parody now.

[Kathy G.]

Rollinson, indeed, you are spot on on both counts.

As for the "Hanoi Hilton" argument, I think the best way to respond to that is via ridicule. Remember how we used "noun-verb-911" to destroy Giuliani? Well, as someone else noted (was it on a listserv? or a comments thread I've read?), we need to hit McCain with "noun-verb-POW". Because it literally *is* the way they respond to each and every criticism of their guy.

[Raphael]

Good post, but it would be better without the Godwin.

[Claire]

Really, really excellent post. I've been lurking for awhile, but enjoy your blog immensely. This sums up most of the reasons McCain would make an inappropriate president. The other main reason (besides being too f-ing old and out of touch) is his short temper.

[icebergslim]

One of the best take downs I have read in a while on McCain. I will post this link on my blog tomorrow.

[jonnybutter]

I don't think people are as aware of McCain's background before Cindy as they ought to be. Everybody knows his current wife is rich, and some know that he dumped his first wife like the shallow cad he is; but they don't know that he was a terrible student and pilot. If McCain was a Democrat, Karl would be suggesting that McCain got shot down because he was a shitty pilot, that his captivity was due to his own ineptitude. I don't know that Dems should do that, but people ought to be aware that McCain got a lot of breaks before he married Cindy.

Good post, KG.

[Betty Cracker]

Bravo!

[mpowell]

How did Kathleen only get $10K? Isn't it damn near impossible to write a will that holds up in court that gives $100M to one kid and $10K to the other?

[Dr. Waterbury]

the Obama campaign needs to get a "swiftboat" organization to blast this stuff out over the airways like the Repub-mob did in 2004. Sweet revenge.

[Nat]

I've been wonderin'.

On the 18th I posted on Yglesias' site support for Biden as VP and used the 'verb, noun, POW' line. Maybe I was the "frist" that started all this. It certainly was a natural. On the other hand, I flipped the noun/verb order so maybe I lose on a technicality.

[madmilker]

With this great union being $53 trillion in debt neither tat you write about have the character to be president.

[Susan of Texas]

John McCain is the Sex in the City candidate, with his bed-hopping, ultra-rich spouse, house in exclusive area, and very expensive, high fashion shoes.

Cindy McCain has brain damage from a stroke. It would not be in her best interest to assume First Lady duties.

[mac]

It's hardly surprising John 'Amnesiac' McCain forgets these large details.

In an interview in 2007 he forgot the make of his car and an aide had to remind him it was a Cadillac.

This is the same genius who referred to Vladimir Putin as the "President of Germany" and who educated Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America with his insights into the Iraq/Pakistan border situation.

McCain is a massive liability. Too old, too ideologically rigid in a cold-war- warrior kind of way, too sexist and too out-of-it when it comes to basic essentials required by presidents, such as ... a working memory.

As I watched Obama notch up 8 in the polls after the speech, the relief was tangible.

[mac]

It's hardly surprising John 'Amnesiac' McCain forgets these large details.

In an interview in 2007 he forgot the make of his car and an aide had to remind him it was a Cadillac.

This is the same genius who referred to Vladimir Putin as the "President of Germany" and who educated Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America with his insights into the Iraq/Pakistan border situation.

McCain is a massive liability. Too old, too ideologically rigid in a cold-war- warrior kind of way, too sexist and too out-of-it when it comes to basic essentials required by presidents, such as ... a working memory.

As I watched Obama notch up 8 in the polls after the speech, the relief was tangible.