Aug 21st, 2008 at 12:30 pm
$4 Million is Now Rich?
McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers fires back against charges that his boss is out of touch: “Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses?”
It seems like only yesterday that earning $4 million made you middle class. . . .
74 Responses to “$4 Million is Now Rich?”
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August 21st, 2008 at 12:34 pm
To answer Rogers’ question:
Of course he does! Obama has nothing to fear from discussions of who owns the most stuff (or has the use of the most stuff–Cindy I believe actually owns most of the McCains’ stuff), and how they got it (see last parenthetical).
August 21st, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Is there really such a thing as a private beach in Hawaii? I know that in Florida all beaches are public. I’m surprised Hawaii doesn’t have the same policy.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Since people were posting pictures they took of Obama on the beach, I’m pretty sure it is public. A google search also suggests all beaches are public property.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I think if our wealthy, wealthy leaders are going to throw around words like “rich” and “elitist” as insults, they should all be forced to dress and act like hobos.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Hawaii does have the “all beaches are public” law — it’s in the state constitution.
However, sometimes the only feasable land access goes over private property, and gets closed off; local governments are supposed to figure out ways to get easements, etc. but it doesn’t always work. No idea what the situation was at the place Obama stayed.
Also remember the Nixon San Clemente, CA, house, where the beach was definitely public, but the Secret Service wouldn’t let anybody on it when Nixon was in residence.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:48 pm
If you can make that sad clown hobos, maybe even sad clown hobo mimes, I might agree.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Answer to the Rogers question: Abso-frackin-lutely!
Let us compare how Obama and his family built their wealth. Oh, yeah. Through American meritocracy and with best-selling books written before he was famous. His father-in-law had MS and went to his lunchpail job every single day. His grandfather was a WW2 vet in Kansas.
McCain? Oh, yeah. He spent 6 months cheating on his ailing wife with a beer heiress. The only private-sector job he has ever held was as a PR flack for his said beer distributorship. Oh … and did we mention that the McCain family wealth dates back to a great-great-grandfather who owned 52 slaves in Mississippi?
THIS is where Obama wants the campaign to go. Time to start throwing kidney punches.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I live a mile from where Obama stayed. Public beach, no access problems — I was on the beach 50-75 feet from his rental.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:53 pm
A better question, who actually earned their money and who got it by upgrading to a trust fund wife?
I think Obama would welcome that debate.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Hahaha, they’re really flailing. “Uh, $4 million! Uh, Hawaii! Uh, Rezko!”
Looks like this attack hit them hard.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Holy shit. I think Obama’s campaign may have hit a nerve. Don’t let up.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:59 pm
What qjk said. You hear whining like that and you know that you’ve hit them in the balls. Don’t nit-pick the rebuttal, just hit again and again.
The best thing about this is that you can laugh at Scrooge McDuck. Which is what Obama is doing, more or less.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:00 pm
In general, all beaches are public below the high-tide mark. Whether that expanse of sand is wide or narrow depends on the beach and the tidal range at that site. It’s the access that makes things tricky, as Rich noted. That’s when private land owners can play games (David Geffen tried this in Malibu) and towns can charge for beach access by arguing that they own the land that you have to cross to get to the beach. But I think everyone’s got the right to be on any beach as long as they’re below the high-tide line. It’s basically a semantic game to say that someone rented a house on a private beach. Sure, it’s likely that some of that property is ON the beach, and that sliver of beach is indeed private, but there’s nothing private at all about the beach below the high-tide line.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Now this line of attack is more like it… coordinated… bloggers pushing and magnifying it, pulling on multiple threads to create a theme a frame McCain in way that plays right into Obama’s strength (economic plan — middle class tax cut). Obama, responds by doing a FLASH advertisement to reinforce the attack. McCain, back on his heels having to defend, the media picking up on it allowing an echo effect. Every time McCain responds, it simply reinforces the frame… etc.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:08 pm
blue is right:
“Let us compare how Obama and his family built their wealth. Oh, yeah. Through American meritocracy and with best-selling books written before he was famous…”
and more importantly books written by himself! No Mark Salter-like figure involved.
Check out this on the manufacturing of McCain by the Hensleys:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=0fd7470d-a41f-4d9e-9328-fd079b476a0a
August 21st, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I have to say that Rogers knows how to respond. None of this, “the American people are tired of the negative attacks, and I call upon my opponent to stop them,” stuff.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:13 pm
The McCain’s — right out of F.Scott Fitzgerald’s work for describing them (the wealthy Great Gatsby - Buchanan character type)—Cruel, unimaginative, careless to all except themselves, everything is done for only their own pleasure - people that do not have the capacity to hope.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Let’s put this beach thing to rest. Hawaii has no private beaches, period. The beach that Obama stayed at is well-used and easily-accessed. For Rogers to accuse Obama of staying at a private beach, with all its elitist connotations, is simply a smear and a lie.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:15 pm
It isn’t a question of who is rich and who isn’t. The point is who is in touch and at least understands what the average person deals with. Neither Poppy or GWB understood this. Obama did grow up without privilege and should know what it means to struggle. I grew up lower middle class and we lived in a modest house, my parents had one older used car (until my father bought an older pickup for 150.00) we at out at the burger drive in place maybe twice a month, no soda, cigarettes, alcohol, etc… and we struggled. I remember the power being turned off more than once. I now make a comfortable income in top 5% yet I am still frugal and I still know the price of milk, gas, meat, and eggs.
McCains problem is he has tried to paint Obama as an elitist in the bad way (out of touch, thinks he is superior) as opposed to the good way which is intelligent and thoughtful.
As an aside, GWB was supposedly an oil man and unaware that gas was approaching 4.00/gallon a few months ago. This lack of intellectual curiousity is astounding and McCain seems to have it in a similar way to Bush as far as economics go but obviously not globally like Bush.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Uh… actually yes. If I am rich at $150k/year, which I am per most Democratic parameters (as in we’re only going to raise taxes on the rich… if you make $150K you are in the top 5%, etc., etc.) then Senator Obama is definitely rich, and Senator Mccain is filthy rich…
Dumass
August 21st, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Wow, the economy must be worse than I thought.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:22 pm
most r0×00r headline ever!
I certainly hope Obama wants to get into a debate about houses. LOL
August 21st, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Lying, desperate, pathetic response from McCain. Arugula attack? c’mon. Hell yes, Obama wants to have a debate about who’s out of touch with ordinary Americans. McCain’s policies would be a disaster for the middle class. Go Obama and don’t back down on this- even though the media will whine about how “negative” it is. It is the TRUTH!
August 21st, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Does Obama’s “seven” ad represent the new type of politics he has been promising? Didn’t he just scold McCain for engaging in this very sort of politics?
Pathetic. Obama hasn’t even been nominated and already he is failing to deliver on the one thing that was the premise of his whole campaign.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I think Obama would be well-advised to tie McCain’s attitude about his wealth to his long tenure in DC. People like and admire POWs, but they hate Congress — and one of the most effective ways too attack an incumbent is the ol’ “he’s been in DC so long that he’s out of touch with regular people in his district” thing.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:30 pm
All beaches in Hawaii are public so McCain is attacking Obama on a myth.
Still it seems odd if one has to very very rich to be elected then why waste time slinging this insult. They are rich and of priviledge and we are not. The game I guess is to make each other look elitist and to not be in touch with the common man. Multi millionaires with many residences who have the money to take vacations and have free comprehensive health insurance are not in touch with the common man - so who are we kidding
August 21st, 2008 at 1:34 pm
ObamaCamp: You’re absurdly wealthy!
McCainCamp: Oh yeah, well you’re not even rich and worry about the price of things, like food and housing!
I mean, this is the real takeaway from this exchange.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Isn’t it time to put together a rapid-fire attack ad conflating McCain with both Abe Simpson and Montgomery Burns?
He’s old, he’s cranky, he’s richer than Croesus, and he’s out of touch.
Hit this every day until November.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I wonder if he even wants to get into a debate about ex-felons helping you buy houses, given Cindy’s father’s history . . .
August 21st, 2008 at 1:51 pm
The Obama dilemma (as Nancy notes above) is only cracked with care: ridicule, satire and other arrows of the mind. Even the fickle will come around.
Leave fear and smear to the Republicans. They’ve build an empire on fear that’s about to fall. It started with McCarthy and it will end with Bush.
Barack’s offense must be ideas and dreams - YES WE CAN. His defense must always and only be the arrows of the mind.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:51 pm
There are no private beaches in Hawaii. There won’t be unless McCain and the Repugnicans have the opportunity to push through some kind of federal statute which overrides Hawaii’s laws.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Hell, given Cindy’s history.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Touche, Jeffrey.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:08 pm
What I’d really like to see from this business about McCain’s homes is more people talking about how it fits into all of our ideas, instead of just using it as an insult against McCain personally.
Specifically,
Why does a person need anything like 7 or 12 homes when other people are poor and live in crowded, miserable places?
Why is it that a person can own 7 or even 12 homes (McCain owns several house-shaped, houe-sized structures on one of his seven properties– structures that families could be living in– therefore he actually owns 12 homes) in this country? How does the system let them get and keep so much wealth they don’t need– even enough to leave fortunes to their kids?
Why do we allow people to own as many as 7 or 12 homes in this country?
We can even start looking forward to the future: since it’s so obvious that no one actually needs as many as 7 homes, and in the future of dwindling resources it’s going to become harder and harder for everyone to get by, we can start talking about changing the laws to do things prevent people from owning as much extraneous property for their own use, like 7 personal homes.
It’s time for the common people to start talking about things like this and to start fighting for them. We can’t expect the rich people to do it. No rich person, when push comes to shove, really cars about any of you or their country. Why else would we have a rich class? When they have all that money and property and the security that comes from it, the security and comfort it provides to them is too attractive, and you can expect that no rich person over the age of 18 who knowingly owns 7 houses really cares what happens to any of us so long as they have their property and security. We just have to conclude from that that it has to be us who fights for the interest of the country and its people, and these people who have to ave their excess taken from them.
Rich people may say that they care about other people, may even donate to Obama and try to change things, but in the final analysis, it is all superficial because when the chips are down and the decisions really count, they wil side against you and side in favor of their money and security. That is why things don’t change in this country– because the common people don’t realize this, and rich people aren’t motivated to change things for us. So it has to be the common people who pick up this work.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:19 pm
This is the first time I’ve seen “flood the zone” from the Obama campaign and his supporters, based on my quick trip around the blogosphere.
For once, and impressive ability to drive the message, guys.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Your concern is noted, ‘Nancy, DC’
Now claim your McCain Points.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Why does a person need anything like 7 or 12 homes when other people are poor and live in crowded, miserable places?
Or when there’s a meltdown in the mortgage industry and peoples’ homes are being reposssed on a regular basis?
from enfante terrible David Brooks’s recent column:
McCain started his general-election campaign in poverty-stricken areas of the South and Midwest. He went through towns where most Republicans fear to tread and said things most wouldn’t say. It didn’t work. The poverty tour got very little coverage on the network news.
He should have invited some of those people to come stay at one of his seven empty houses like Larry David did on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Nancy:
Pathetic. Obama hasn’t even been nominated and already he is failing to deliver on the one thing that was the premise of his whole campaign.
He held out for a long time, while McCain was running Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton ads. So I’m not dissapointed. Also it’s an open question on whether he’ll govern in a negative blame the other side pass the buck way, as Bush has with rare exceptions.
Obama has bent over backwards regarding Hillary. So glad she won’t be VP:
http://www.newsherald.com/articles/hillary_67499___article.html/obama_campaign.html
“Part of Hillary’s problem was her insistence on staying in the race against Obama after she was mathematically out of it. She felt that math was elitist, and because many Democrats are not good with numbers, she kept going. Unlike “American Idol,” where Americans actually take their vote seriously and when you lose you have to go home immediately, the Democratic primary allows losers to linger and make life hard for those who beat you. And linger she did.”
August 21st, 2008 at 2:51 pm
It doesn’t matter how many houses he has or what they cost. I don’t care if my President is a billionaire, in fact I’d vote for Warren Buffet in a second. What is important is that the person understand what it is like to live on 50,000 year for the average family or what it is like to scrape by on minimum wage. They should know the price of staples, of housing, of fuel and should know how their actions affect these.
There is no way to limit how many houses someone can own. I do favor a progressive tax structure and am not against greater estate taxes. We do not want to see weatlh accumulated in so few hands and passed down in tact for generation after generation. McCain is much like Gore or Edwards if he has so many places. You can’t really believe in global warming and behave in such away.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:55 pm
in fact I’d vote for Warren Buffet in a second.
A man who, ironically, owns fewer houses than McCain and is probably has a much firmer accounting of his own assets and McCain does.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Isn’t the fact that the McCains failed to pay taxes on their beachfront home in California for FOUR YEARS even more damning?
What “regular American” would a)not pay their taxes and b) get away with it for so long, with no repercussions??
This should be a central element in this story, and Obama should be hitting McCain with it every day until November.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Warren Buffett is annoyed that the tax code takes a higher percentage out of his secretary’s paycheck than it does his. He could also most likely, at the age of 78, tell you every company BRK owns or invests in.
So, in fact, the Scrooge McDuck or Mr Burns analogy is wrong. The closest comparison is with a young heiress frittering away money on an no-limit AmEx that gets magically paid at the end of the month. Which is why McCain got the Paris Hilton dig in first.
August 21st, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Resistance-
As a fellow common person, let me tell you that there is no one–and I mean no one–to whom I would ever surrender my right to decide for myself what I do and don’t need.
Neither do I accept the postulate the the only possible future is one of ever-increasing privation, because I believe in the human capacity for creation and innovation.
You may be content to live in Dystopia and turn over your right to determine your own lifestyle to the State, but I’m certainly not.
August 21st, 2008 at 3:14 pm
A medley of nearly all 2008 attacks on Obama while doing a double back flip somersault. I gave it a 9.9, only because he forgot the scary black preacher.
August 21st, 2008 at 3:44 pm
How many McCain points did you get for that post?
Do you have enough for the ball-gag, yet?
.
August 21st, 2008 at 3:55 pm
There was an old man
with $500 shoes.
He had so many houses
he didn’t know what to do.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Barack Obama was the child of a single mother on food stamps. Michelle Obama comes from a working class family on the south side of Chicago.
Conversely, John McCain is the son of an admiral. Cindy McCain is the daughter of a beer magnate. Now they’re so rich that McCain isn’t even sure at this point how many houses he owns.
Who are the elitists? I think it’s pretty obvious.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:03 pm
The election ended today. Know that.
August 21st, 2008 at 5:53 pm
“Elite” and “elitist” are not synonymous. Elites are people of high rank. Elitists are people of high rank who are snobs about it. All elected officials are elites; some were elites before entering office.
Obama idenitified himself as an elitist not with his arugula remark (that’s just plain tin-earedness) or his associations with crooks, but with his condescending “clinging to guns and religion.” I am unaware of McCain exhibiting snobbery toward the so-called little people (of which I am one), but I do know of his condescending remarks toward Wall Atreet, Big Oil, and Big Pharma. And the McCain-Feingold Censorship Act is a pretty dang elitist bit of legislation, if you ask me.
On another note…yeah, I think $4 mil in personal income qualifies as “rich” - if one is sustaining such income levels with consistency. Nothing wrong with being rich if the riches are honest. But the issue was houses. Rogers should have mentioned the Rezko deal only; Obama’s income and vacation have no bearing on the issue.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:18 pm
McCain didn’t earn any of those millions - he married into money. Obama had only a single mother and grandparents and work his way up and earned all his money the real American way and people call him on wealth? McCain only flew because after crashing three jets in training his father got him through flight school. This of course is his only claim to fame - being shoot down and taken POW - BTW did you hear McCain was a POW; he may own (through a corporation) seven houses but he was a POW; he may not know much of economics but BTW, he was a POW. Of course, unlike Kerry who not only was wounded in a number of combat actions, but he was never lucky enough to be a POW so attacking his service by slime repubics was OK. Just remember, McClueless, was a POW so we all must accept anything he says.
August 21st, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Sounds like you’ve been tuning out McCain’s mortgage comments.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:39 pm
In what major American urban area does $1 million buy a mansion? People who earn $4 million a year are middle class, but people who live in million dollar homes are rich.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I grew up lower middle class and we lived in a modest house, my parents had one older used car (until my father bought an older pickup for 150.00) we at out at the burger drive in place maybe twice a month, no soda, cigarettes, alcohol, etc… and we struggled. I remember the power being turned off more than once.
Americans are so damn wierd with their class notions. How in the hell is that not either working class or lower class?
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:43 am
How in the hell is that not either working class or lower class?
He wasn’t black, brown or white-and-rural. There is, indeed, this weird assumption among Americans that being white and vaguely urban/suburban and not living in a trailer makes you lowermiddleclass, even if your father repairs roofs or plumbs drains or empties the trash.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:12 am
Yes, earning 4 million a year makes you rich. Having a net worth of 4 million makes you (most likely) upper middle class.
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:54 am
McCain is not only confused about how many homes he owns or how much money it takes to be called Rich, he is also confused about foreign affiars –Supposedly his Strong Point, as revealed by the link below:!
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-john-mccain-and-his-secretive-plot-to-kill-the-un-903998.html
“If someone can’t keep track of their personal finances — for example, can’t even say how many homes they own — should they really be in charge of our whole nation’s finances? (Gordon Fischer)
McCain, I do think your Confusion or pardon me, your Age is Showing!
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:35 am
McCain didn’t earn any of those millions - he married into money.
McCain = Kerry?
I really don’t care if people marry into money. I do care about their plans for involuntary money transfers, especially if I’m one of the coerced parties.
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