Published: August 28, 2008 11:39 am            

Let’s not count houses

“Your kitchen table is like mine. You sit there at night after you put the kids to bed and you talk about what you need. That’s not a worry John McCain has to worry about. He’ll have to figure out which of the seven tables to sit at.”

Joe Biden made that comment during his Aug. 23 speech after being selected as the Democratic vice presidential nominee. As I heard Biden say those comments, I detected a halting note as if he knew he was saying something silly.

Actually, his observation isn’t true. Many Americans may sit at their kitchen tables wondering how they’ll pay their stacks of bills, but it would be difficult to find one member of Congress who would be in that group.

We all now know McCain isn’t, no matter which house. Although Biden is one of the least wealthy senators according to Senate financial reports, he isn’t sitting at his kitchen table worrying. Having been a senator since age 30, Biden has had a comfortable salary for 36 years.

Obama isn’t pouring over bills at midnight. Whoever is McCain’s vice presidential choice won’t be either.

The Democrats’ sudden attempts to portray McCain as out of touch because he told reporters to find out from his staff how many houses he owns is hypocritically humorous. The Democrats seem to have short memories.

Have they forgotten Teresa Heinz Kerry? In 1966, she married John Heinz, the Heinz fortune heir, who became a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania. After his 1991 death in a plane crash, she inherited that fortune estimated to be worth $1 billion in 2004 according to a June 27, 2004 San Francisco Chronicle story.

In addition to their Vietnam service, John Kerry and John McCain have similar personal stories. Both are once divorced.

For their second marriages, each married extremely wealthy women. Both signed pre-nuptial agreements so the wives continue to own most of the assets including several houses for each family.

Perhaps that explains their close friendship with the rumor circulating in 2004 that Kerry wanted McCain as his vice presidential nominee.

Teresa’s fortune makes Cindy McCain’s look downright average. The pickles are worth more than the beer.

According to an Aug. 22 New York Times article, Mrs. McCain owns 34 percent of Hensley & Co., her late father’s Budweiser distributorship. The company has profits of more than $300 million a year. Mrs. McCain owns 10 homes, including some as rental investments and one as a home for an elderly aunt.

Let’s also look at Nancy Pelosi, the official Democratic convention chair. Speaker Pelosi is the wealthiest congressional leader based upon a June 17 Newsmax.com story. She has assets worth between $30 and $131 million, including five commercial properties and a California vineyard.

It isn’t surprising that McCain doesn’t know about all of his wife’s investments. Kerry probably didn’t know about the many Heinz family investments either.

America has always been a country that applauds making money. How many Americans reject lottery windfalls? How many Americans turn down raises? How many Americans resent those who have become enormously successful through successful enterprise such as McCain’s father-in-law or the Heinz ancestor?

The Democrats can surely find more important issues than McCain’s houses.

Julie Couch is a Stillwater resident.

        

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