Time's Mark Halperin: McCain's inability to remember that he owns seven homes hurts his Obama

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Ladies and gentlemen, today's "WTF" Moment. I want some of what Halperin was smoking when he connected THESE dots.

:eyes:

Halperin: McCain houses gaffe 'worst moment' for Obama
David Edwards and Andrew McLemore
Published: Sunday August 24, 2008

After Sen. John McCain stumbled over a question about how many houses he owns, many political analysts said it was a huge setback that would alienate middle-class Americans.

Mark Halperin sees the fallout a little differently.

"My hunch is that is gonna be one of the worst moments in the entire campaign for one of the candidates, but it's Barack Obama," he said.

Halperin thinks McCain's inability to remember that he owns seven homes actually hurts his opponent.

Halperin said that the Obama campaign's willingness to run ads about McCain's ignorance of his own properties has "opened the door" for the McCain campaign to launch harsher ads of its own.

He added that the McCain campaign can now attack Obama for his connection to convict Tony Rezko, his time as a member of controversial preacher Rev. Wright's congregation and his alleged ties with 1960s militant Bill Ayers.

When asked, "Don't you think that was gonna come up anyway?" Halperin responded:

"I think it would have been hard for John McCain -- given the way that he says he's gonna run this campaign -- to do all this stuff without the door being opened."

The issues mentioned above have had more than a fair amount of media coverage already, while many McCain gaffes have largely been ignored by the mainstream media.

ABC's George Stephanopoulos talked with Mark Halperin, Donna Brazile, Cokie Roberts and George Will in the video below.

This video is from ABC's This Week, broadcast August 24, 2008: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Halperin_McCain_houses_gaffe_worst_moment_0824.html

[Egnever]

1. LOL

yea mcsame was never going to bring up Rezco....Sure.

These folks are getting pretty freaking desperate.

Thank you Internet for exposing these people as the hacks they are!

[GarbagemanLB]

2. Even Cokie and Georgie disagreed with Halperin, pointing out that this was about the ECONOMY.

[opihimoimoi]

3. Bring on the Keating 5, bring on the clips of him losing his Temper, his Smugness

His arrogance...etc

The Dems have Tons of shit on McLoser...tons

They keep digging their hole deeper....

[Triana]

6. Can't WAIT till the Keating 5 is mentioned - n/t

[Mz Pip]

4. Like the McCain camp

would never ever have mentioned Rezko or Ayers if McCain hadn't forgotten the number of his houses.

Give me a friggin break. :eyes:

[Triana]

5. "they way he SAYS he's gonna run his campaign" is exactly the way he HASN'T run it....

...and the GOP has already attacked Obama on all that bullshit and it's already been debunked. So, yea, it would have come up anyway - and already HAS.

The door was already opened - by MCCAIN. He started his negative ads WEEKS AGO. BEFORE housegate. Duh.

Yep. They do pride themselves on being ignorant. And on trying to make voters as ignorant as they are. Unfortunately, many of them will swallow that jizz.

[Frances]

7. Halperin was arguing that Obama started negative advertising

and personal attacks.

Where was Halperin when the Paris ad was on? Like 90% of Americans saw that ad. Does Halperin really think Americans are completely stupid.

Donna Brazille said that Americans will think Obama won't fight for them if he doesn't fight for himself. That point is not original with her but it is one that most viewers will agree with.

Of course, one difference between the Dem comments about the houses is that we can all see for ourselves the clip of McCain saying he'll have his staff answer that question.

The ad about the Ayers/Weathermen activities when Obama was 8 years old and the ad about Rezko being involved in the purchase of Obama's ONE house are different. There is no clip of Obama saying he supported the Weathermen; there is no clip of Obama saying Rezko gave him a good deal.

I am hoping that Americans are more afraid that the Repubs will send them to the poor house than they are afraid of black boogeymen.

[jwirr]

8. McGaffe was already going negative. Also these news people are

often as out of touch with middle class and lower class life as the old guy himself.

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. Riiiigghhttt. Who is this nut, anyway?

[99th_Monkey]

10. LOL ... Halperin is clearly not one of the sharpest GOP media tools in the shed. ~nt~