McCain’s McMansions: Who’s the elitist?

Nationwide, foreclosures were up last month by 55 percent. July 2008 may go down in history as the worst month ever with 272,000 foreclosure filings. If you recall, this comes on top of the December 2007 increase of 118 percent. Of the top three major companies that publish mortgage foreclosure data, two of them rank Michigan at No. 5 among the states with the highest foreclosure rates.

While President Bush signed the recent housing bill into law that was hailed as a lifeline for struggling homeowners, the reality sinking in is that those most hard hit by the economy will receive little to no help.

The McCains even had their own recent foreclosure-like fright. It seems that Cindy McCain hadn’t paid the property taxes on her California home in San Diego County. But unlike so many Americans, it wasn’t because the McCains are struggling. It seems that it’s just a bit difficult to keep track of things when you own 9 McMansions and are running a presidential campaign to boot. Yet that little fright doesn’t seem to have softened John McCain and made him more sympathetic to homeowners who are in dire straits.

Here’s some straight talk on the housing crisis from Sen. McCain from his campaign website:

“I will not play election year politics with the housing crisis. I will evaluate everything in terms of whether it might be harmful or helpful to our effort to deal with the crisis we face now.

I have always been committed to the principle that it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers. Government assistance to the banking system should be based solely on preventing systemic risk that would endanger the entire financial system and the economy.”

If you’ve come on hard times and face losing your home it’s your own fault, you irresponsible urchins, you got that? Of course that’s not the case at all, as many hard-working Michiganders have discovered. Come Election Day, when it comes down to the choice between Barack Obama and John McCain, which candidate do you think will be able to best relate to the hardships facing Michigan and the nation today?

James Flannery, a writer for Associated Content, asks that same question here in this article discussing the “Obama is an elitist” meme that still circulates in the mainstream media:

“Over one year’s time, the McCains’ pay to their domestic help is just about equal to Obama’s salary before he became a Senator, over $200,000. Cindy McCain charged $750,000 in, wait for it, one month! Obama did make a few million by writing two books. Not uncommon in publishing at all. Before that, the Obamas had just paid off their student loans. Who will people identify with more? The couple who just paid off loans or the couple worth over $100 million? I haven’t even talked about McCain’s $500 shoes or his nine homes. But I’ll ask you: Who can more identify with the working men and women of this great country? Surely not John McCain, the senator who’s voted against the minimum wage EIGHT times.”

Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films also asks, “Who’s the real elitist?” in his latest video, and I think quite effectively shows who the real elitist is by showing us exactly who John McCain is. Take a look, and decide for yourself:

McCain’s McMansions: The Real Elitist

(Video courtesy Brave New Films.)