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By "Milbarge" and "Fitz-Hume"

Greater Blogistan is buzzing today over John McCain's Kinsley gaffe in an interview with Politico. When asked how many houses he (and his heiress wife) own, McCain replied, "I think -- I'll have my staff get to you." It appears he has seven homes.

All the political blogs, and a nice chunk of the mainstream press, is covering this, but I've especially enjoyed the alternative takes from NRO's The Corner (see here and here for example) and The New Republic's Plank and Stump blogs.

The conservatives are defending McCain mainly by pointing out that Barack Obama is wealthy and that there was some shadowy business involved in the purchase of Obama's home. It's hypocritical, they say, for Democrats to chide McCain for being elitist when their ranks include the likes of Ted Kennedy. Moreover, they assert, the Democrats will get no traction out of such populist class warfare. But this is a spectacular case of missing the point. NRO's Jonah Goldberg, particularly, has been way wrong about this (see here and here and here for starters).

Goldberg's defense is here, and it makes me worry that a lot of liberals (at least the ones who read The Corner) are missing the point, too. Jonah says that the liberals' have written him, and their argument actually is that McCain's multiple homes make him "out of touch" with the working man. Goldberg concedes that they may gain some ground with this one, akin to the first President Bush's famous experience with the grocery store checkout scanner. Goldberg's basic defense is that the ones who are really out of touch are the cultural elite, predominantly liberal, as opposed to the economically elite, including the McCains.

(Oh, and the McCain's campaign's response is pricelessly lame. After noting that Obama lives in "a frickin' mansion," as if the McCains' home swere hovels, his spokesman said, "This is a guy who lived in one house for five-and-a-half years -- in prison." Yes, and then he lived in one house for seven or eight years before dumping his wife to marry the heiress and buy more houses.)

But all this caused enough forehead-slapping, "arrggh"-venting frustration that I felt compelled to have to spell out what the point really is. It's not that McCain has a lot of houses. The point is that McCain doesn't even know how many houses he owns! That's bad for McCain even if the answer is a Unabomber shack and an outhouse. How are the Cornerites and their ilk missing this? The Obama campaign press release notes more than a dozen times that the campaign surrogates will discuss at various events "McCain losing track of how many homes he owns."

This post from Eve Fairbanks at TNR's Stump notes that this adds fuel to the McCain-is-old-and-confused meme. That's true, and that's probably where the late night jokes are going to go, with the wealth aspect tossed in. ("McCain also said he couldn't remember whether his toilets are gold or platinum! And then he said he always forgets which yacht is his at the marina!") The point here -- and the part of all this that will resonate -- is that it's one thing to be rich; it's another thing to be so rich (and addled) that you forget how many houses you own.

I just have a feeling this will stick to McCain. The only thing that would make it worse is if there had been video showing his confusion. After the zeitgeist gels around the rich+confused notion, how will McCain respond? There are lots of defenses (as if there is anything necessarily blameworthy) to being wealthy and owning lots of property. That's what McCain and his supporters are trotting out now. But what defense is there to not even knowing how many homes you own? After admitting to Politico that he didn't know the number, McCain said, "It's condominiums where -- I'll have them [his staff] get to you." Without tracking down his real estate holdings, I wonder if McCain is suggesting that a condo is leased or held by a trust or in some way not owned outright in fee simple by the McCains. Would Mr. Straight Talk McCain really argue that it all depends on what the meaning of the word "own" is?

Prediction: This may not cost McCain the election, and next year we may be joking that he forgets how many White Houses there are. But this will have legs. It's just too easy a target, too rich for lampooning, and too difficult to defend. And also, even if this story dies down a little this weekend, after Obama picks his running mate, it will re-gain some traction next week, when I'm sure it will be mentioned a hundred times during the Democratic convention, and more importantly, when Jay Leno returns to the air after the Olympics end. Leno's probably already written twenty solid minutes on this. And he can have my yacht joke for free.

UPDATE: A few new links. I think Prof. Althouse misses the point. Marc Ambinder gets it. Matthew Yglesias does the legwork to actually count the McCains' houses (it's complicated because some appear to be rental property).

And, here is the audio of the statement during the Politico interview. McCain can't pinpoint it, but he doesn't sound befuddled or anything. Video probably would have helped him, actually. Still, I stand by my analysis. I don't think his defense will be very compelling if it amounts to "I'm not as confused as my words make me sound!"

Full post as published by Begging the Question on August 21, 2008 (boomark / email).