Obama went to Harvard on a mix of scholarships and student loans

Good point, Jim S.. Hey, I wonder how “post-racial” he was in the application for some of those scholarships? Sometimes it pays to be post-racial, but sometimes it definitely does not.

And given that an understanding of how that class of American isn’t getting by hasn’t been displayed by McCain or his campaign it becomes an issue in times like this.

Except when a hyper rich Democrat runs for president, such as John Kerry, who married into more wealth than McCain, then it is not an issue.

Who cares how the wealth was acquired unless we’re talking about the Corleone family here ?

Cindy McCain is a successful businesswoman from a successful family. As a result, John McCain is “wealthy”

Barack Obama is wealthy too, not as wealthy as the McCain’s perhaps, but still better off than most Americans and about as in-tune with middle-class America as George HW Bush was in 1992.

Frankly, I don’t care how wealthy a candidate is and the fact that both campaigns are engaged in an argument that contains the assumption that wealth and success are somehow bad things says some pretty disturbing things about America IMO.

“How do I become successful like that?” John McCain’s honest answer should be “marry up” and Cindy’s answer should be “be the best beer distributor you can be.” Obama’s answer: “You shouldn’t be that successful and I will redistribute your income if you are.”

Hear, hear!

The truth is that the vast majority of folks who end up running for President are not all that familiar with living paycheck to paycheck, or month to month, and who worry about things like the price of gas, and winter heating, and rising food prices, and the shaky job market.

Is John McCain out of touch of such matters? Demonstrably yes. Undeniably so. But is Barack Obama “in touch,” comparatively speaking? I see nothing that suggests he is. When was the last time either of these guys hopped in the car and drove to the store to buy some and six-pack of beer? Many moons, folks. They’ll both strive to tell us that they feel our pain. But you can count on it that neither of them has had recent occasion to actually experience for themselves anything remotely resembling the sort of pain that middle class folks, especially blue collar workers, are feeling these days. So best get over it.

I confess to finding it quite pathetic that the GOP has such an relenting penchant for bitching about “playing the class warfare card” every time someone has the temerity to notice something like the fact that for the bottom 60-70% of folks at least, income growth has been stagnant or worse compared to inflation.

Wealthy folks are getting ahead like a son of a bitch these days compared to average folks. Average folks can see this painfully clearly. And whining that such a notice means “playing the class warfare card” is not going to avail Republicans a whit. Not a whit.

Jim S. is at least being honest. First he calls it “the old Republican class warfare meme” and then proceeds to explain why the class warfare is justified (so I guess it’s not just a “meme”) – which apparently has something to do with 1) the subprime mortgage issue, 2) globalization of the labor market, 3) part-time employment practices and 4) healthcare.

Well, most intelligent Americans aren’t going to hate the McCains for being successful, but rather ask “How do I become successful like that?” John McCain’s honest answer should be “marry up” and Cindy’s answer should be “be the best beer distributor you can be.” Obama’s answer: “You shouldn’t be that successful and I will redistribute your income if you are.”

He doesn’t expect Obama to respect his home ownership, nor does he respond with something resembling Obama’s whining about McCain’s supposed assault on Obama’s political aspirations.

Whatever your opinion is on the nature of the campaign, it still doesn’t change the fact that Obama is playing class warfare, pure and simple. Remember it was Obama who said Americans were bitter clingers – as if it were the American people themselves who are out of touch with their own social realities and needs – McCain didn’t even have to point that out, everyone remembers it just fine.

Nowhere in Obama’s ad does it suggest that McCain owning that many houses is anything resembling a crime. What it does suggests, as I’ve mentioned, is that he’s out of touch with the common man, especially when it comes to economic struggles. Since when is pointing that out class warfare?

Perhaps crime was the wrong word, but that doesn’t make the ad any better IMO.

If McCain is out of touch with the so-called “common man”, then so is the guy who graduated Harvard, lives in a million dollar home in Chicago’s Hyde Park, worries about the price of arugala, and sends his kids to private school.

In other words, they’re both phonies.

I had heard something about this on the radio a while back, but didn’t have all my information earlier. Here are the facts. The home is held in trust and is occupied by an elderly aunt of Mrs McCain.

Because, you know, helping out family is a bad thing.

Who cares how many houses the McCain’s have ? Who cares whether they’re investment homes ? And who cares if elderly Aunt Zelda lives in one of them ?

I had heard something about this on the radio a while back, but didn’t have all my information earlier. Here are the facts. The home is held in trust and is occupied by an elderly aunt of Mrs McCain.

I suppose you could argue that it is an investment and the aunt is house-sitting, but that doesn’t exactly let them off the hook. The tax bills were being sent to a Phoenix address associated with Mrs. McCain’s trust, but were returned by the post office.

McCain’s camp said that the bank that manages the trust has not been receiving tax bills on the property.

When Newsweek ran this story, McCain immediately paid 6,700 in taxes, but still owed 1,700

Still, at some point during 4 years don’t you think, “Hey, Aunt Petunia’s house…shouldn’t we be paying taxes on that?” Should the trust have said that?

And this year, it was the GOP that introduced class warfare into the campaign — just as they have done in every national election since 1988. Remember Dukakis? Kerry? Gore? Even Clinton?

This tactic has won the GOP many, many elections, while the Democrats sputtered and protested … and were then relentlessly mocked for “whining” and being weak. Gosh, I seem to remember that Rush Limbaugh was saying exactly this about Obama just yesterday.

And now the shock – SHOCK! – when the Democrats fight back on the same terms.

Is it all good fun and clean politics when the GOP pulls this stuff, but unspeakable class hatred and Boshevism when the Democrats whip it out?

So it is both lame and inaccurate for you to slag the Democrats for being hypocritical AND hating people that are successful … for punching back, and using McCain’s own words against him to boot.

Do you have something against punching back? Or do you just have something about DEMOCRATS punching back?

While I’m not entirely a fan of the McCain strategy right now, it’s one thing to call some one a rock-star elitist with no substance.

It’s quite another to make it seem like a crime that someone has been successful enough in life to become wealthy.

That used to be something Americans aspired to. Today, there seems to be a segment of the Democratic Party that views wealth as a moral failing.

Unless it’s their wealth, of course ;)

I don’t know about the tax issue, but I do know that at least 4 of the 7 houses at issue here are investment properties, not residences.

What others me is that at one home the couple ignored 4 years of tax bills on the property–and I am a little sktechy on how four years of tax bills on an ocean front condo can only amount to $8,400.

It’s one thing to be an out of touch elitist who thinks the economy is going swimmingly…it’s far worse to be an out of touch elitist who doesn’t pay his taxes like the rest of us.