McCains Bought Second Beach Condo At Around Time McCain Said Struggling Homeowners Needed To Skip Vacations
Here's a fun little find that is likely to give Dems more ammo to blast away at John McCain's number-of-houses gaffe.
It turns out that a few months ago, a McCain family corporation closed on a second multi-million-dollar beach condo in the same building in exclusive Coronado, California -- at around the same time that John McCain offered his somewhat tone-deaf observation that struggling homeowners were "working at second jobs" and "skipping a vacation" in order to make mortgage payments on time.
Cindy McCain discussed the timing of the second condo purchase in a June interview with Vogue magazine (not online) that's newly relevant in light of the explosive controversy over John McCain's inability to recall how many homes the McCains own.
And in another fun fact that could pour fuel on this controversy, Cindy told her interviewer that the reason they needed a second beach condo in the Coronado building was that the first was too crowded because her kids were staying there and as a result she "couldn't get in the place."
Cindy continued: "So I bought another one."
Here's the relevant passage, from the start of the Vogue piece:
It is a late Sunday afternoon in April, and I am sitting in a condominium in Coronado, California, taking in the view of the gorgeous San Diego Bay with Cindy McCain. She closed on the place just two weeks earlier, and the only things unpacked so far are the family photos that dot almost every surface. It's her family's second condo in the building. "I like the ocean, and the kids love it here, and I love that," she tells me, curled up on a nondescript couch that looks like it might have come with the apartment. "When I bought the first one, my husband, who is not a beach person, said, 'Oh, this is such a waste of money; the kids will never go.' Then it got to the point where they used it so much I couldn't get in the place. So I bought another one."
According to a July story in The Politico, a McCain family corporation spent a combined $4.7 million on the two condos in Coronado.
If the interview was conducted sometime in April, and she'd closed on the condo two weeks earlier, that means that the latest the closing could have happened is mid-April, and the earliest is mid-March.
On March 25, John McCain said:
And 51 million homeowners are doing what's necessary: working at second jobs, skipping a vacation, and managing their budgets to make their payments on time.
So at around the time McCain said this, the McCain family corporation was either actively in the market for, or had closed on, a second multi-million-dollar beach condo in the same building which was necessary because the first one was too crowded with their children in it.

Now you're just nitpicking. It's really only four homes, condos, mansions, estates, whatever that they actually live in, not 37.
August 21, 2008 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Totally nitpicking. Just the same type of stunt you'd expect from William Jennings Bryan!
http://strategy08.wordpress.com
August 21, 2008 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, the score is 127-0 Obama after five innings. Time to call the mercy rule on this.
... or not!
August 21, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
No mercy for the liars!
Sheesh, I want a "family corporation."
August 21, 2008 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
yesivotedforbush,
HEY!, its the wrinkly old white haired guy.
August 21, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm tired of working to pay my mortgage, taxes, gas, food, health insurance.
I want Cindy & John McCain to adopt me!
August 21, 2008 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Get Mother Teresa to talk to them for you. Oooops. Uh, pray for her intercession, I guess.
August 21, 2008 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
You should do like John McCain.
Stop whining and dump your wife, and marry a multi-millionaire. If she can't buy you political office, what good is she anyway?
It's the honorable American way to get rich.
August 21, 2008 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
and all those other houses they bought are just "investments"---how nice of them to get investments like that when I'm struggling to make ends meet on $31,000 a year.
Time for a new job, bitches.
August 21, 2008 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
The "POW" defense is starting to get some ridicule. Ben Smith at Politico wrote:
http://strategy08.wordpress.com
August 21, 2008 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Smith says that well, it's indeed what's happening, thank God.
August 21, 2008 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
No wonder McSame is so tight with Phil Gramm and his predatory sub-prime lender friends.
August 21, 2008 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are six houses on their Sedona ranch alone. Does it really make sense to count that as one home, just because they're all on the same property? How many houses do most people have on their property?
I'm sorry, that's nitpicking again.
August 21, 2008 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I got a doghouse on my property - does that count as two houses?
August 21, 2008 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've got a refrigerator box... does that count as a second home? How about a big Sunday NY Times and a subway grate?
August 21, 2008 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
See how rich you are! We'll be looking for your place on MTV's Cribs!
August 21, 2008 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can put a small 1 person tent on the balcony of my apartment. Hey does that count? It is even a green home! Uses no utilities whatsoever :)
Hey Cindy! I could have saved you a few mil. I have 2 teenage boys in a 2 bedroom rental apt. When they got too big to share a room, I put up a room divider in my living room. 1/2 is my sons room 1/2 is our living room. Come on!!!! Get cozy. Family is supposed to be close.
August 21, 2008 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think I'm going to start branding the McCain's Mr. and Mrs. Thurston Howell III. Whaddya think?:
http://www.thepersonalispolitical.com/2008/08/mccain-doesnt-even-know-how-many-houses.html
I think it fits perfectly!
Kudos to TPM for finding this!!
August 21, 2008 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, I just remembered that Johnny Boy is a III as well! I love it.
August 21, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
!!!JohnSidneyMcMENTUM!!!! (III)
August 21, 2008 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
LuxVeritas,
hahahahahahaha.
Obama to McCain; 'If you don't behave I'm going to huff and puff and blow your 10 houses down.'
August 21, 2008 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
It would take a lot of puffing, these aren't small properties :P
August 21, 2008 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Then it got to the point where they used it so much I couldn't get in the place. So I bought another one."
I love Cindy McCain's justifications.
Ya know, the only way to travel around Arizona is by private jet, so I bought one!
August 21, 2008 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ha, it's sort of like that show "Million Dollar Listing" on Bravo, where they show all these rich people buying homes. This one woman spent $225,000 for a summer lease just so her sons could surf right on the ocean from that summer house.
August 21, 2008 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remember the anecdote about McCain's mother not being able to rent a car in France because of her age? McCain bragged about the fact that she showed those Frenchies who's boss: She just went out and BOUGHT herself a car! So there! Those elite Frogs can't tell a MCCAIN what to do!
I never quite took the same message from that little story that he intended (that she is so together and feisty and wonderful that she won't take no for an answer). I always thought, "Who can relate to a story like that?"
Nobody ever questioned his take on it though. Maybe it will get revisited.
August 21, 2008 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reminds me of Victor Kiam and the old electric shaver commercial -- "I liked it so much . . . I bought the company!"
August 21, 2008 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I think it's definitely time for this video to get a new airing.
August 21, 2008 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is it just me, or does it bother anyone else that she never calls him "John?" It is always, "my husband" even if she has to awkwardly do it 3 times in one sentence!
August 21, 2008 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cville says;
"I can't find my fiancee, has anybody seen my fiancee? I seem to have lost my fiancee"
Elaine: "Maybe the dingo ate your fiancee" :-)
August 21, 2008 5:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why aren't we demanding Cindy McCain release her tax returns?
Ummm, she wasn't a POW too, was she?
August 21, 2008 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
...because she doesn't have too...
August 21, 2008 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bzzzzzzz. Sorry buckaroo, if Theresa Heinz Kerry had to release her tax returns, then so does Cindy McCain.
What's good for the wives of Democratic candidates is good for the wives of Republican candidates.
August 21, 2008 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
...if I'm not mistaken, she didn't give up her taxes...
August 21, 2008 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, you are mistaken, because she did release partial tax returns, just like your hero's wife, Cindy.
But isn't funny how, in 2004, the Weekly Standard said:
about Kerry, but not John "Seven Houses" McCain?
August 21, 2008 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
No funnier than being a kept man and vietnam vet was golden for the Dems at the same time...I guess it is funny when you think about it.
August 21, 2008 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice try recycling your talking points.
Why not mention the "party of McGovern."
Translation: Obama scored with this, big time.
Your sqealing any Bush-like "looky over here, over here" speaks volumes.
August 21, 2008 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://mediamatters.org/items/200804180007
And do you remember the hissy fit the whole of the right wing through about her tax records? I do. I thought they would have a brain aneurism.
August 21, 2008 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I never threw a hissy fit and I'm a right-winger.
August 21, 2008 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are obviously an atypical rightwinger because you hang out with all the crazy progressives (ooh! you might get COOTIES) at TPM....
August 21, 2008 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some days I do have to spend extra time in the shower to feel clean again...lol
August 21, 2008 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't Kerry's wife have to in 2004?
August 21, 2008 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
nisleib,
I don't think she 'had' to, but the wingnuts made a big thing of it and the allegedly "liberal media" did as they usually do, picked up and ran with the right wing cudgel so Heinz Kerry did release a part of her 2003 income tax return that showed "total income," which enabled The New York Times to analyze how she benefited from the Bush tax cuts.
Such an analysis of how the McCains have benefited from the tax cuts -- which Sen. McCain supports extending permanently -- is not possible, based on the information his campaign has released on Cindy McCain's income."
August 21, 2008 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
that was from Media Matters. Sorry aobut the delay in attribution.
August 21, 2008 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Especially since McCain doesn't benefit at all from her money, businesses, connections.....
August 21, 2008 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
He would never dream of flying on her private jet, even though the ONLY way to get around Arizona is via private jet.
August 21, 2008 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Schrodingers,
free beer.
August 21, 2008 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
ooooh I love your avatar. I want one! Do they sell those in real life? Or is it a photoshop production? I love the little feet.
August 21, 2008 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
This meme is just the gift the keeps on giving.
August 21, 2008 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
This story has legs!
McCain: Ten houses are fine if you're a POW.
August 21, 2008 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
But regular 'nam vets? Fuck them, they deserve to be homeless!
August 21, 2008 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
What are you talking about? According to Bill OReilly there are NO homeless Vets...
August 21, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I looked into Bill O'Reilly's eyes and I saw his asshole.
August 21, 2008 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
August 21, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't have to look that deep, didja?
August 21, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice catch.
Maybe it's just me, but Cindy McCain seems more like Jan Crouch with each passing day.
August 21, 2008 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice job, Greg! I hope this gets more media attention. Really great work.
August 21, 2008 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. Great find Greg. Exceptional investigative reporting.
August 21, 2008 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink