It

By
Bill Press                                                                           Read Spanish Version

No
politician can claim to be your average American, but some do a
better job of faking it than others. And when they’re exposed as
being out of touch with average Americans, the results can be fatal.

Remember
George H. W. Bush, visiting a supermarket and expressing his
amazement at those new-fangled checkout scanners, which most
Americans — who go to the market more than once every 10 years —
were long accustomed to? Remember John Kerry, windsurfing off
Nantucket in his shiny, fancy body suit, not exactly projecting the
image of the man next door? Or John Edwards’s $400 haircut? In each
case, the candidate was forever branded as unable to relate to the
middle class.

But
give Bush, Kerry and Edwards credit for this: As rich as they are, at
least they knew how many houses they owned.

McCain’s
had a field day recently, trying to paint Barack Obama as an elitist.
In paid TV commercials, McCain compared Obama to celebrities Britney
Spears and Paris Hilton, who live in their own zone of fame and can’t
relate to ordinary Americans. Unfairly or not, those ads were taking
their toll on Obama, until McCain’s gambit blew up in his face — and
he proved himself to be the most out touch politician of all.

Clearly,
Politico’s Mike Allen was not trying to entrap McCain when he asked
him a very straightforward question. Earlier in the week, on the Web,
the AFL-CIO had circulated a video claiming that McCain and his wife
owned 10 homes. Wanting to set the record straight, Allen asked the
obvious: "Senator, how many homes do you and your wife own?"

OK,
stop right there. I admit, Carol and I own two homes: one in
Washington and one in California. In fact, I don’t know anybody, no
matter how rich, who could not answer that question. Even Teddy
Kennedy knows how many houses he owns. But John McCain, looking more
than ever like a confused old man, could only blurt out: "I
think — I’ll have my staff get to you. It’s condominiums where —
I’ll have them get to you."

Quickly
attempting to defuse the situation, McCain’s staff soon reported that
he owned four homes. They were off by half. As The Washington Post
documented, the McCains actually own eight homes: a condo in
Arlington, Va.; three condos in Phoenix, Ariz.; two oceanside condos
in Coronado, Calif.; one condo up the road in La Jolla, Calif.; and a
ranch in Sedona, Ariz. (which actually has five houses on it).
Altogether, these eight properties are worth over $13 million.

By
any stretch, that’s a lot of real estate. How could McCain own so
much but know so little about it? There are four possible
explanations: Either he really didn’t know . . . or he couldn’t
remember . . . or he knew, but didn’t want to embarrass himself . . .
or he couldn’t count that high.

However
his campaign tries to explain it, the housing gaffe is bad news for
McCain. Most Americans didn’t know he is one of the wealthiest and
most pampered members of the Senate.

They
do now. And, as Obama was quick to point out, hard-working Americans
can’t trust McCain to understand their economic woes when, on top of
thinking you have to make $5 million to be considered rich, he can’t
even remember how many houses he owns.

Knowing
their candidate had shot himself in the foot, the McCain campaign
lamely attempted to tie Obama’s one house to indicted political fixer
Mark Rezko. But that, too, backfired. Aside from the fact that Rezko
had nothing to do with the purchase of Obama’s residence (Rezko
purchased an adjoining piece of property), the mention of Rezko only
served to remind voters of McCain’s previous close association with
crooked Savings and Loan chief Charles Keating.

Most
seriously for McCain, his senior moment also destroyed his chances of
painting Barack Obama as an elitist. The truth is now out there for
all to see. Barack and Michele Obama own one house, not eight. Their
net worth does not exceed $100 million. Michele Obama does not own
even one corporate jet. And Barack Obama does not wear $520,
hand-made Ferragamo loafers. There’s only one elitist in this race,
and it’s not Barack Obama. It’s the plutocrat John McCain.

Bill
Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of a
new book, "Train
Wreck: The End of the Conservative Revolution (and Not a Moment Too
Soon)."
You can hear "The Bill Press Show" at his Web site:
billpressshow.com. His email address is: bill@billpress.com.
(c)
2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.