Homes = Ties = Wii games = ice cubes.

The ways the the right wing attempt to defend McCain's seven homes fiasco are becoming priceless. But the best I've come across so far has to be this:

The latest campaign kerfuffle is Obama's effort to make hay out of John McCain's inability to tell a reporter how many houses he owns. McCain mumbled something about condos and said the reporter should talk to his wife. Predictably, Obama is trying to spin this exchange as showing that McCain is "out of touch."

I can relate, though. For example, if a reporter asked me how many ties I own, there's no way I could answer. Just like McCain, I'd tell him he has to ask my wife. Likewise if someone wants to know how many Wii games my kids have.

Jesus, and I worried that these guys were out of touch with most people. Glad they've put me straight.

The number of homes that you own is comparable to the number of ties that you have. Or the number of Wii games that your kids have. Or, presumably, the number of ice cubes in your freezer.

I'm sure everyone in America can relate to that analogy. And these pricks call other people "elitist"?

UPDATE:

I happen to agree with Dick Polman. The Obama team need to fix this to McCain with a branding iron. Kind of like the way the McCain team refuse to let up on the fact that Obama eats arugula as if that's like eating caviar and truffles. They have been relentlessly beating this non-existent point attempting to imply that this proves Obama is an "elitist".

Okay, it's the battleground of their choice and it's one in which their candidate has just shown himself to be especially vulnerable; hence the rage coming out of the McCain camp over this issue. They KNOW that they are exposed here. As Polman says:

Given the fact that John McCain has stepped into a steaming pile of manure - by confessing that he is clueless about the extent of his own lavish lifestyle - the only question now is whether the heretofore timid Obama campaign has the requisite moxie to exploit this priceless gift... not just today, but for the next 73 days.

Let's put it this way: If this situation was reversed, if a Democratic candidate had so egregiously whiffed on a question of how many houses he has, the GOP would pound away with repetitive precision until the damning message about the "out-of-touch rich elitist" was emblazoned in every American mind.

The fury of the McCain camp's counterattack yesterday (Obama has a house that a sleazy guy helped him buy! How dare anyone attack a former POW!) was vivid proof that Republicans recognize their dilemma. They may not be able to govern worth a darn, as the last eight years have demonstrated, but they are masters of the visceral campaign message. And they well understand that McCain made the mistake of handing the Democrats a visceral campaign message. It ain't brain surgery:

"McCain doesn't even know how many houses he has."

McCain uttered a truth about himself, a truth that the GOP would have preferred he not reveal. He provided an honest window into his character, an aspect of his psyche laid bare. He let slip that he lives a life that in no way resembles the lives led by the millions of average Joes whom he aspires to represent - a life so bountiful that he doesn't even know its full bounty.

I have stated here many, many times that it was simply ludicrous for a man married to an heiress to a $100 million fortune to attack Obama, a guy raised by a single mom using food stamps, as "elitist".

But that was the hokum that McCain's camp - in their unbelievable arrogance - thought they could sell to the American people. McCain's latest ad has shown that he still, unbelievably, thinks that he can continue to play the game that Obama is a "celebrity" and McCain, like any other honest Joe, worries about the family budget. He's campaigning on a huge lie. Obama's team should pound this till it bleeds.