Political Fallacy

I saw the image above at Mock, Paper, Scissors and it got me thinking. My first thoughts were, why does McCain need so many cars and homes for just he and Cindy? Why do they need a pick-up truck? Why does he need three golf carts, one I understand maybe, but three? So I went through the usual liberal thoughts on what a rich asshole McCain is and he is and I will never ever ever vote for him.

But then I started to think about Obama. We get this image that he is a regular guy, that he is not a rich asshole. He only has one home and only one car. Hmmmmmm.... well maybe they only have one car because Michelle only needs one car for her and the two girls, OK. And they only have one home, in Chicago, because, well, Michelle and the girls live there and that is Barak's primary home. But then where does he live when he is supposed to be in D.C. for Congress and how does to he get to work? Ya see, we think of Obama as this regular guy, he does not have a lot of homes and cars like McCain, but he still probably has a condo in D.C. or the surrounding area. Maybe he rents this condo and maybe he owns it, but either way, he has a residence in DC. And where ever he lives, I am relatively certain that he is not taking the bus or Metro to work. So either he has a car in DC, he rents a car or the Congress provides a car for his use, but then who is paying for this car if he doesn't own one and who is paying for his residence in DC if he doesn't own one?

We like to think of our presidential candidates as just like us. We like to think that they have jobs like us and houses like us and cars like us, but this is simply untrue. In order to be involved in politics on the national level, you have to be wealthy. You have to have the money to put into getting your campaign started. You have to have the money to keep yourself going if your campaign struggles and supposedly you should have the money to be able to afford to go to these fundraisers and such. So you have to be wealthy. It bothers me when we try to think of candidates as anything other than wealthy. While we struggle to pay bills and many are struggling with mortgage payments, neither of these candidates has these issues. Maybe Obama grew up in a family that struggled, but he has not had these same issues in many years. So lets face the fact that neither of these men are working class and both are in the upper tax bracket and worry more about their policies and not their financial situations.