In the past couple days presidential candidates McCain and Obama have been trading brickbats about their multi-million dollar homes, each trying to portray the other as elitist and unfeeling toward the common man.
I’m not sure who started it, although from what I gather it began when McCain was unable to answer a direct question about the number of homes he and his wife own. The Obama campaign seized on this with a bevy of ads knocking McCain. In turn, McCain became the knocker, pointing out that Obama’s house was purchased with the help of a man who is now facing time in prison.
This is the height of absurdity (although I suspect new heights will be scaled at the upcoming conventions). Should the price a man paid for his home or the number of homes he has be a factor in voting for that person? I say “No.”
Sure, there are those who will agree that someone who lives in a mega-buck house has lost touch with the common man. But I would want documentation for this; after all, I suspect no president of recent memory has worried about a mortgage or run out to a currency exchange for an advance on his salary.
The fact is today’s presidential candidates need to be relatively well off to even seek the office. They need to have private assets that can help when finances are tight. And, in some cases they also have wealthy wives (Kerry and McCain come to mind).
This doesn’t necessarily have a bearing on how each would govern. Nor does it necessarily separate them from the common man’s aspiration. Rather, I suspect that Mr. C. Man would be willing to have the same problems as our presidential hopefuls. So I say to McCain and Obama, move on from your personal housing issues. Give us something of substance — It could be on the real estate fiasco or the economy or Iraq — instead of brickbats between now and November.
Otherwise, I’m voting for my Uncle Dick for president.
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