From Salon.com:
Reported from the campaign trail today, Obama pounces on McCain's inability to identify how many houses he owns.
"Somebody asked John McCain, 'How many houses do you have?' And he said, 'I'm not sure, I'll have to check with my staff,'" Obama said with a tone of incredulousness at an outdoor event here.
"If you don't know how many houses you have, then it's not surprising that you might think the economy is fundamentally strong," he said. "But if you're like me, and you got one house, or you are like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so they don't lose their home, then you might have a different perspective."
Suddenly, laid-back Obama is getting tough. What's that Emily Dickinson said about the wounded deer leaping highest?
Another update: The McCain campaign apparently fails to realize that it would be smarter to let this story just die. Spokesman Brian Rogers just released this rhetorical question: “Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses?”
Um, actually, yes I think he does. The house ratio is at least 4:1, perhaps as high as 8:1. And at least Obama knows the answer to the question, which is more revealing. This is the equivalent for McCain of George H.W. Bush's infamous supermarket scanner moment.
At each campaign stop, Obama ought to start dipping into the front row of his audiences, say "I have one home," and proceed down the line with the microphone and query five or six people, "How many houses do you have?" The networks would gobble that up. You think Karl Rove or Steve Schmidt wouldn’t instruct George W. Bush or McCain to pull the same type of stunt if the mortgages, so to speak, were on the other tax filing?
Get your calendars and diaries out and mark down today's date: This could be the tipping point when the mantle of "out-of-touch elitist party" began to shift.
"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
~ Muhammad Ali
