McCain's houses

So John McCain was a little confused about how many houses he has. Oops. This is a classic example of Michael Kinsley's observation that a gaffe is what happens when a politician tells the truth.

Maybe it depends on what the definition of "house" is.

Politico answered the question for him: it's eight. The Obama camp, of course, has been on this all day. One detail that has gone mostly overlooked: when he couldn't answer, McCain said that he would have his staff get back to the interviewer. His staff? It's actually normal for a Senator to refer questions to staff, but it sounds like the classic Hollywood line "I'll have my people get in touch with your people."

The best thing about this for the Obama campaign is that it gives them an excuse to highlight this issue without bringing it up first. The fact that the McCains own so many houses has been known for a long time, but it has been below the radar. Now everyone in the country knows about it. Greg Sargent at TPM has a succint summation of the implications:

This gift is four-fold: It allows the Obama campaign to reclaim the offensive after a far-too-defensive stretch. It energizes rank-and-file Dems who had been hand-wringing about what they saw as Obama's unwillingness to get tougher with McCain.

It gives Obama the opening he needed to sound a more aggressive populist tone that until now he'd left to others. And it shifts the focus away from national security politics, where McCain was making clear gains, on to domestic economic issues, which are paramount in the minds of voters.

TPM found another little tidbit in the Politico piece: the McCains recently raised their budget for household employees from "$184,000 in 2006 to $273,000 in 2007." $273,000 for household employees? Many people have maids that clean their houses once a week, or maybe a guy who does the lawn, but a quarter of a million dollars for household employees? Smells like elitism to me.

Of course, John McCain doesn't actually own all of these houses. His wife, Cindy, owns them, because she's the one with the money.

In 2004, didn't Rush Limbaugh et. al. mock John Kerry for marrying a wealthy heiress?

Half the fun is watching the McCain campaign try to spin this:

McCain strategists hope that Obama's brass knuckles punch doesn't work. "Americans don't like this class warfare stuff," the official said. They aspire to be rich, the official said. They don't aspire to eat arugala or hang out with celebrities.

Americans also don't like feeling like they're being screwed over by rich people who know how to game the system.

The more the McCain camp tries to spin this, the more ridiculous they look. What the hell does an obscure kind of lettuce have to do with a Presidential campaign? Hanging out with celebrities? Isn't McCain the one with a cameo in a raunchy sex comedy? Which I think will ultimately be the best thing for Obama: there's just no way McCain can use trivialities like arugula or Paris Hilton to attack Obama, when he has 8 houses. Owning more than one house is something absolutely everybody understands.

One last little bit of identity politics

One of the problems that I have had with Hillary's candidacy is that there have been a number of accusations of sexism from her supporters, but Hillary herself has done very little to address issues of gender. Obama, of course, gave his great speech on race in Philadelphia.

Which has, unfortunately, left the door open for something like this:

Members of Congress who support Clinton are weighing a joint letter to Senator Barack Obama pressing him to put Clinton on the ticket, a congressional aide confirmed.
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida has suggested the letter, which would aim to represent the voices of female members of congress and those from swing states and key demographic groups.
The letter hasn't been drafted yet, though, and as with much of the day's vice presidential buzz, Clinton's supporters seem to be pressing ahead in the absence
of clear direction from the candidate

The first issue there is "absence of clear direction from the candidate." I think Hillary is failing her supporters by not making a decision about dropping out. Get it over with. I don't think it's appropriate to feed false hopes - better to take the medicine, deal with the pain and move on.

Hunter at Daily Kos has a great response. I'm quoting most of the post:

What bothers me -- a lot -- is the identity politics of it. She's worried about the voices of "female members of congress and those from swing states and key demographic groups." Only the women? That's what the Clinton campaign has degraded into, the notion that you don't sufficiently respect those women if you're not willing to give Hillary Clinton, the primary loser, whatever she wants?

Against the first black nominee for the presidency, that's both ironic and profoundly tacky. He is rejecting identity politics, but a small number of prominent Clinton supporters are willing to wallow in it.

I thought the Clinton campaign was just as historic as the Obama campaign, but every time her own supporters reject the premise of perfect equality between the candidates and demand she be treated differently because she is a woman or because her supporters are women, they tarnish both victories.

Clinton has no more right to be Vice President based on her gender than Obama has right to be President based on his race. Those things were -- and this is the historic part -- never the point. They have both become successful through their own actions, their own personal histories, their own inspirational and skilled leadership. This is a day in which both camps should be celebrating the history of their moment, not tossing up whatever last shreds of suspicion and group identity they feel might give them a few more days of momentary advantage.

This issue is not going to go away. Again, I think Hillary has done her supporters a disservice by not addressing this issue. By refusing to take responsibility for her failure, she has opened up opportunities for her supporters to play these kinds of games. My suspicion is that Hillary honestly doesn't know how to address this stuff.

What's unfortunate is that she's missing a historic opportunity. In Obama's great speech in Philly, one of the points that he made is that America has made great progress in redressing racial injustices. He tied his faith in America to that history. He basically said that he trusted white people, and he trusted black people. And that he trusted them to make an effort to understand each other.

Without making a similar speech, Hillary lets her supporters make all kinds of accusations of sexism. I'm sure there has been some sexism in this campaign. But the problems with those charges is that it makes it more difficult to have an honest discussion about the campaign and about feminism. Hillary made some major mistakes that are responsible for her failure, while Obama ran a brilliant campaign. When her supporters charge that she failed because of sexism, they sound like they are refusing to acknowledge the mistakes that she made. Which I think ends up cheapening the cause of feminism, and weakens real accusations of sexism. It sounds like her people are crying wolf rather than accepting reality. The biggest problem is this "absence of clear direction from the candidate." We've heard for months about how tough Hillary is. It's very easy to be tough when things are going your way. The true test of how tough you are is when everything is going against you.