McCain's In The House(s)

A good point that I think has been long overdue for the Obama campaign to make:

Senator John McCain said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.

"I think — I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."

The correct answer is at least four, located in Arizona, California and Virginia, according to his staff. Newsweek estimated this summer that the couple owns at least seven properties.

Yeah I know, pretty much everybody who's become president lately has been a millionaire but saying that about Obama when discussing McCain's fortune is like me saying I can swim during a discussion about Michael Phelp's eight gold medals: both statements are factually true but the comparisons are also leagues apart. Obama is indeed rich, but John McCain is wealthy and it's a message the Obama campaign needs to hammer home to working and middle-class Americans during these times of economic woe and want. Thus this ad, called "Seven":

[Update: Andrew Sullivan has the final tally at eight:

That's how many houses McCain actually has, although because they're all part of Cindy's massive fortune, it's understandable he can't quite keep track of how immensely wealthy he is and has been for a very long time.]

[Update II: A YouTube chronicling the man's many casas:]

[Update III: The Washington Post offers an inventoried list of the properties:

Those real estate holdings include a Sedona ranch with three dwellings, worth $1.1 million; a Phoenix condominium suite that had originally been two units, worth $4.7 million; an $847,800 three-bedroom high-rise condo in Arlington; an oceanfront condo in La Jolla, Calif.; a half-million-dollar loft in Phoenix purchased for their daughter Meghan; another Phoenix condo, worth $830,000; and two beachfront condos in Coronado, Calif, one of which is valued at $2.7 million. The other was purchased just this year, as McCain was lamenting the difficulties that struggling Americans were facing just to make their mortgage payments. Cindy McCain told Vogue magazine the family needed the second condo because the first was getting too crowded as their family grew.]