Obama was making fun of the fact that McCain doesn't know how many houses he owns...he has some investment properties! Obama said that made him "elitist", and "those of us who only have one house..."
McCain's people FINALLY responded as they should.
McCain Spokesman's Retort: Obama Lives in "a Frickin' Mansion"
By Michael D. Shear
SEDONA, Ariz. -- A spokesman for Sen. John McCain vowed to retaliate against today's story about how many houses the GOP candidate owns with a renewed focus on Sen. Barack Obama's ties to a Chicago developer and charges that Obama is an elitist.
"We're delighted to have a real estate debate with Barack Obama," said spokesman Brian Rogers, adding that the press should focus on Obama's house. "It's a frickin' mansion. He doesn't tell people that. You have a mansion you bought in a shady deal with a convicted felon."
The felon reference was to Tony Rezko, a former Obama friend and financial backer who was convicted on fraud and bribery charges this year. Rogers vowed to intensify efforts to link Obama to Rezko in the coming days.
"That's fair game now," he said. "You are going to see more of that now that this issue has been joined. You'll see more of the Rezko matter from us."
The McCain campaign was in full damage-control mode as the housing story took off today. Rogers tried to play down the story, saying that reports of the many McCain houses were overstated.
"The reality is they have some investment properties and stuff. It's not as if he lives in ten houses. That's just not the case," Rogers said. "The reality is they have four that actually could be considered houses they could use."
Those four include an apartment in Arlington, a ranch in Sedona, and two condos, in California and Phoenix, he said. The others include "some investment properties and things like that."
He also added: "This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," referring to the prisoner of war camp that McCain was in during the Vietnam War.
Rogers called the house story "by far the most personal attack" of the campaign, and said "it comes from a candidate who said he was against this kind of thing."
He predicted that the story would not "stick" with the American people.
"In terms of who's an elitist, I think people have made a judgment that John McCain is not an arugula-eating, pointy headed professor-type based on his life story."
Posted at 1:15 PM ET on Aug 21, 2008 | Category: John McCain
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/08/21/mccain_spokesmans_retort_obama.html
