I don't like it one bit. This is just petty and small and desperate.

He has wrong plans and ideas for this country, which has nothing to do with his own wealth.

So, McCain proposes a tax plan based on happiness levels? Awesome.

Nice job, Gov. Kaine! He did great with this and I hope will continue to be a hard working surrogate even if not picked as VP (and I hope he won't, too "inexperienced").

This is an excellent opening, Obama and Dems need to push it for all it's worth. It's not petty at all- the guy can't even keep track of how many houses he has - plus, his "spiritual" answer about the true meaning of wealth is total BS for a candidate. McCain's policies will help the rich a lot and the middle class, not. (private health care accounts? Are you kidding???)

His dodging of questions on facts and figures (in this interview and at Saddleback, etc.) shows he doesn't really care about these bread and butter issues. I am having a hard time paying bills, and to me, every dollar counts! McCain doesn't care about me, that much is clear.

Finally an attempt to brand him beyond just as a third Bush term. Keep up the Bush tactics, but you need to expand on it, make the country think he's an asshole, beyond policy decisions.

Liberals know what an asshole McCain is: the constant off color comments, the sleazy deals, the disgusting two-faced nature of his 'straight talk' image, etc, etc. There is a huge laundry list of legitimate character problems John McCain has, and no one seems ready to call him on them.

This is about damn time. McCain had it right with the celeb ad - a personality smear, followed by a lie about policy. Obama can use this same tactic, but he doesn't have to lie because McCain's truth is bad enough as it is!

This is good, but is anyone at Camp Obama planning to pound McGoo's recent show of support for a military draft?

Chuck Todd calculates that if Obama banged that issue, his support among 18-34-year-olds would double.

Just sayin.

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!!! FOR MCCAIN!!!!

All kidding aside 2 things come to mind.

1) How can you not know how many homes you own?

2) He still hasn't answered the damn question!!! What does he qualify as "rich?"

McLiar is your typical old, white, country club elitist. C'mon...the old man owns 6 properties, 3 of which are in the D.C., Virginia area.

but Barack Obama understands the new economy and he will.

oohh, i really like that 'new economy' reference. wrap it up with st john's earlier quotes about his learning curve on the internet to really illustrate the point.

I think this is actually a good place to start. People are really hurting economically right now. My family is well off in terms of income but we have HUGE debt. The thought of someone having TEN houses while we are struggling to keep ours- it makes me angry. I can imagine it does for other people too. Think about the people you personally know who are significantly wealthier than you- ever feel resentment? Now magnify it because you don't personally know McCain and he is richer than anyone you know. Pair that with his being out of touch- doesn't know how we feel- will give tax breaks to people like himself and Obama's story of rising from nothing- single mom, food stamps etc- I think it is a winner. It ties policy to natural resentment and people's feeling of insecurity- not about national security but financial security. I like this way of going- it also undermines the Obama celebrity meme without addressing it head on.

It's about damn time.

Don't forget the $520 imported Italian loafers! That shit is gold, GOLD!

And it's got to be a humorous approach, damnit. Got to look like you're having fun with it. Don't come off all serious, you're just poking fun at Daddy Warbucks McCain.

This is gold. Sure it's silly, but so was Kerry's "I was for it before I voted against it." This needs to be repeated ad nauseum. It's the founding block of "McCain's an uber-rich guy who has no clue what it's like for a regular Joe." There's plenty of other threads to weave together.
McCain started the whole "grand" lifestyle meme. It's time to hoist him on his own petard.

Let's rephrase the question:

Senator McCain, how many of your homes will have to be foreclosed before you are homeless?

Wait! Wait!

I note a tear in McInsane's voice when he talks about unhappy billionaires . . . Could his angry, gruff exterior be hiding a broken soul tortured mountains of cash?

We all need to back up off this sad old soulless bastard. Obviously, he is crying inside.

This is gold, Jerry. GOLD!

I really, really hope that some McCain surrogate justifies this by saying he was a POW.

I really hope someone does that.

As for this question:

Surely these McCain quotes will get every bit as much attention as John Edwards' $400 haircut, right?

They will, if the Democrats pound this message, over and over and over.

And let's not forget this nice little home ownership story:

Obama Got Discount on Home Loan

"It's certainly safe to say that this borrower did better than average," said Keith Gumbinger, an HSH vice president.

Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, has no mortgages on properties he owns

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/01/AR2008070103008_pf.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpmFd25tRqo new obama ad about the houses.............

Well, now we know why Senator Straight Talk said that no American would pick lettuce for $50 an hour. (There's room in this line of attack for that old classic, I'm sure. Should play real well with Mr. & Mrs. America.)

"Celeb" ads...eine kleine political attack.

"McCain doesn't know how many houses he owns?"...eine huge economy-size political attack!

Unintended consequence alert.

McCain likely bought those houses legally without any interesting aspects to the deal.

This give McCain a legitimate response that will bring Obama's fishy home loan and Rezko right back into the spotlight.

Of course there will have to be investigations into the personal financial dealing of all the senior Obama handlers. That could get very interesting. Yup, this is definitely of importance to selcting the next president.

Desperation time.

And now, on CNN's Political Ticker, we have this:

The McCain camp later told Politico the Arizona senator and his wife own at least four homes in three states. Other news organizations have reported a higher total.

At least four homes in three states. Well, that certainly makes John seem like Joe Six Pack, doesn't it?

BTW, fogu, it appears this little gaffe might have some legs. It's frontpaged at CNN.com.

The longer we can keep McCain and the GOP struggling to answer this question, attempting to explain and parse and define, the better. It's just 100% pie

About time!!

Great stuff. Hit this SOB hard.

He's a gaffe machine. Keep it coming, Johnny boy.

Brand him as a man of 10 houses. Then, as per IMF's predictions, if and when one of the larger US credit banks falls (most likely Bank of America, and possibly within the election cycle), generate further context to that initial branding...clips of Phillip Graham's "whiners" comment, McCain's "I don't know much about the economy" comment.

But whatever the next blow-up situation, be it international (Georgia) or domestic (economy), Obama needs to get ahead of McCain.

Yes! It's about time to make McCain "relax and enjoy it". See how his sense of humor holds up and all...

Populism, YES!, that's the ticket!!

It's two pronged attack on two very tangible McCain weaknesses.

One, he's an out of touch multi-millionaire who has no sense of the economic hardships of the middle class.

Two, he's so old and senile he can't even keep remember something as simple as how many houses he owns.

If you're in an offensive state of mind, Cain is good for one of these verbal or mental blunders every few days. I have no idea why it took Obama this long to get into this attacking mindset, but better late than never.

a guy who has no working knowledge of the internet and the computer cannot fully appreciate the value of information technology. in the same way, a man who is unaware of how many real estate property he owns and who therefore does not take personal responsibility over it/them, cannot fully appreciate the burden the middle class is going through. mccain is truly out of touch.

Kaine sure is making the rounds today.

I am not sure how fruitful this line of attack is, and Kaines (can't count high enough) comment was less than Presidential.

I am sorry guys, but there is a huge risk here. Trying to portray McCain as a bumbling slobbering old man might seem to make sense, until we have another Saddleback moment where the media agrees that it was Obama who was bumbling around giving meandering answers.

If the slobbering old man bests Barack (or even matches him) in the debates, and I am not so naive as to think it might not happen, then what will that make all of this look like? Barack gets beaten by the bumbling old man?

THEY ARE LOWERING EXPECTATIONS FOR MCCAIN!!!

Bush artfully did this in 2000 when he talked down his abilities to debate. The left relentless replayed Bushism after Bushism until America was convinced he could not speak English.

Then he proceeded to come out and hold his own against Gore, while Gore went off like an obnoxious grad student. Gore probably actually won on points, but the fact that Bush did not pee his pants made the perception seem that Bush actually beat him.

The same thing happened against Kerry.

Also, I am not sure playing up the age thing is a good idea politically. This is an aging country and they will turn out in droves.

I am astonished at how giddy everyone is over this ad. It is not even clear that it is factually correct.

According to the Politico, McCain does not actually own any houses himself, his wife's family owns them...so are we attacking Cindy McCain for owning too many condo's? Is that our strategy, to attack Cindy McCain's condos?

It is frivolous and reduces Barack's stature. It gave a wonderful opening to the Rezko mess, which almost nobody in the mainstream knew about. They will now...AHHHHHH!

Attacking Cindy McCain's condos vs. Scrutiny (and possibly a debate question) on Rezco is not a winning trade-off folks. The Rezko thing is an ugly affair for which Barack does not have any real defense. Rezko was indeed a scumbag.

Also, it is well documented that McCain goes everywhere doing unscripted town halls, I cannot wait until the do an ad that compares the number of town halls Barack has done vs. McCain.

It is going to be real hard to keep up this "out of touch" message when the other guy has done 5 times as many town hall events.

Sorry to give you a dose of reality, but I still think Barack's team has their head screwed on backwards.

They have done little right since the primary...

Who cares what factcheck.org has to say about anything? No one pays attention to them?

Guess what, McCain is an elitist with a rich heiress wife. Kerry was portrayed as an elitist, with a rich heiress wife- he was sound ly beaten by a member of the Bush family (can you say uber-elite?) who likes getting photographed on the porch of his Texas ranch in his shirt sleeves and says "folks" so often he slips and calls terrorists "folks".

This shit works. Not only that - it's friggin relavent and true. McCain went to an AFL-CIO function and told a bunch of $20 - $40/hr skilled tradesmen that they wouldn't do mindless meanial labor in hot weather for $50/hr.

Oh yeah? I am a technician that works on roofs and in boiler rooms of industrial buildings for less than $50/hr in my check. Temperatures are usually between 90 and 110 degrees and it's way more humid than Arizona, and I'm usually carting and hoisting around 100lb plus peices of equipment while diagnosing and repairing complex electrical and mechanical problems in these conditions. I am at the top end of the wage range for my job and there are few jobs that pay more.

It' hard to figure out which is worse: McCain thinking $50/hr (100 grand a year) is not worth working your ass off for, or McCain thinking that no American workers are willing to work their asses off for a nice wage.

No one can deny that McCain thinks US workers won't work when conditions are harsh, even if the pay is substantial.

I am stunned that he is even able to show his face in a crowd after this kind of pure working class bashing.

For any of you Obama supporters who think a wealthy career politician who doesn't even keep count of the multiple plush living compounds he and his wife keep all around the country, and has the nerve to tell me that the reason non citizens are needed to keep fresh food on their table is because no Americans will work for them at any price, I say F*** you -- vote for the out of touch warmongering rich douchebag then.

An elitist comment like this should be a wakeup call for middle class Republicans. I'm sure there are many of them who have lost or are losing their homes to foreclosure.

Not to mention the children they've lost to a dishonorable oil war.