Aug 21st, 2008 at 12:23 pm
The Case of the Million Dollar Cabin
John McCain owns a 20 acre vacation property in Arizona worth over $1 million where he’s going to spend the week of the Democratic Convention. Or as Jonathan Martin puts it “the candidate is now at his cabin in Sedona, which he’ll make his base of operations as the spotlight focuses on Obama.” Admittedly, rich people who vacation in Maine have a tendency to call their summer homes “cabins” no matter how lavish they get, so it’s hardly as if McCain and/or Martin are being unique in this regard but it’s still a bit absurd.
39 Responses to “The Case of the Million Dollar Cabin”
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August 21st, 2008 at 12:25 pm
i vote for “compound.”
August 21st, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Where I grew up, “cabin” was the standard term for a vacation home in a rural area, regardless of size, among all classes of people. Also, 20 acres is a decent amount of land, so presumably that could be where a lot of the $1M is going. But yes, McCain’s wife is rich, and McCain is enjoying the ride.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:31 pm
That said, I second paperpusher.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
MattY is truly fitting in at TP: I counted four posts about McCain’s properties, before I got bored. No doubt many others feel the same.
The better question for MattY to ask is whose interests are served by the candidates’ policies? So, for instance, when BHO comes out for one of Bush’s highly questionable and secretive schemes (spp.gov, complete with its own MythsAndFacts page), whose interests are served? Why did BHO feel the need to speak in code when coming out for that scheme?
August 21st, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Poor Matt now seems to have become just a real-estate maven.
Frankly, I’m much more worried about McCain starting a global nuclear war with the Russians than about whether he and his rich wife are driving up mansion prices around the country.
I’d suspect that most voters would feel the same way if Saint Barack and the worthless Democrats would start making the case, but they won’t so no one else will either.
I’m no expert on Matt’s current employer, George Soros, I do know that he’s vastly richer than the McCain, so he and his family probably own even bigger mansions. And since that crazy Georgian leader who started the war with Russia is a direct Soros protege, I assume that Matt may now have become really enthusiastic about America going to war with Russia over the sacred soil of South Ossetia.
Poor Matt. It’s starting to look like there may not even be an Obama Administration for him to join as a junior speechwriter
August 21st, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Just last week I stayed in a “cabin” at a Country Club in Michigan. This “cabin” had four bedrooms, each with two king size beds. My bedroom in this “cabin” was bigger than my apartment. It’s not exactly what used to come to mind when I thought of a cabin.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:41 pm
The worst part of this is that JMart used to call it a “ranch” back when they wanted it to sound macho until David Axelrod made the crack about “the porch of his AZ home” and JMart published a huffy-puffy entry saying “It is hardly a luxury compound” and has started calling it a “cabin”.
Research his archives. You will see. He used to call it a “ranch” and only started calling it a “cabin” when it became an issue.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Looks like a desert estate to me… and conveniently located a mere 10 miles from the private Cottonwood, AZ airstrip at that!
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=34.793488~-111.898606&style=h&lvl=16&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&rtp=pos.34.7332520229537_-112.036123857388_515%20Airpark%20Rd%2C%20Cottonwood%2C%20AZ_Ace%20Xpress%20Shuttle%20Service_(928)%20639-3357~pos.34.795056_-111.900581_11415%20E%20Hidden%20Valley%20Ranch%20Rd%2C%20Cornville%2C%20AZ%2086325__&rtop=0~0~0&encType=1
August 21st, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Another try on that link to McCain’s estate.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:47 pm
once more, sorry
August 21st, 2008 at 12:54 pm
when your main home is worth $4.7 million, the $1 million home is a cabin. Posted from my shed.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:02 pm
My lean-to in Gstaad needs a little sprucing up. Hope that $2,700,000.00 estate tax reprieve will cover expenses.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Sedona, ugh. A complete tourist trap.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Keep it up Matt; it’s clear this one is drawing blood because the concern trolls are out in force.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:21 pm
McCain reported paying $136,572 in wages to household employees in 2007. Aides say the McCains pay for a caretaker for a cabin in Sedona, Ariz., child care for their teenage daughter, and a personal assistant for Cindy McCain
August 21st, 2008 at 1:45 pm
The insinuation that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, misrepresented the nature of his modest cabin get-a-way, is outrageous.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:55 pm
In the satellite photo I linked to above you can see the housing for the help at McCain’s estate… presumably the secret service is shacking up there this week as well.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Some places are nice despite the tourists. Sedona is one of them. (Ditto Oak Creek Canyon, the Grand Canyon (naturally), Canyon de Chelly, and Chiricahua) Of course, I was a tourist when I was there, but I didn’t mind. What I minded was the mix of New Age La-di-da and Open Carry Paranoia.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Kvetch, kvetch. You guys went on and on (and on and on) about elitism. So, f*** off. If you can’t stand the heat, don’t buy $10,000 stoves.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:08 pm
It’s not a “cabin”–there are somewhere between 3-6 properties on this estate!
Per WSJ May 9, 2008, there’s a main house of 2,500 square feet (larger than the median family home), a guest house of 900 sf, and a caretaker’s cabin. Oh, and other articles have mentioned the property’s private orchards (in the desert!). Same WSJ article indicated that though the assessed value is just $1 million, the inflation in property prices in the Sedona resort area (the estate is a “matter of minutes” from Sedona’s restaurants, shops and lattes, per JMart) mean it could have sold in May for something like $4 million.
Open a dictionary. Which better describes where McCain is this weekend? Cabin: “a small house built of wood; usually in a wooded area” or Estate: “extensive landed property (especially in the country) retained by the owner for his own use”.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:09 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 2:10 pm
Also, like most conveniently located desert cabins, McCain’s is located 10 miles away from a private airstrip in Cottonwood, AZ. You know, if you want to avoid the new agey riff raff of Sedona for a true backwoods experience.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:57 pm
never mind
August 21st, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Here is a link to the Architectural Digest profile of John’s Sedona Cabin.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Resistance, after reading your screed, I just wondering – do you prefer Cuba or China? Your travel plans can be arranged.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Lynne sounds like one of those people who thinks that America is about robbing from the poor and giving to the rich. Cuba or China sound more appropriate for you and the Republicans, frankly, than they do to the ideas in the comment you referred to.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:46 am
Because MY is a poopiehead, you need to visit my newly-renamed blog. My obsession with scary Mexicans won’t pay for itself, you know!
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:30 am
“Admittedly, rich people who vacation in Maine have a tendency to call their summer homes “cabins” no matter how lavish they get,”…
We call them “camps,” not “cabins.” People from away, such as yourself, may call them “cabins,” which is how we know you’re from away.
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