This is a cross-post from my Democratic Underground journal, which itself was reponse to a post about McCain's relative cluelessness.
The original post.
The story starts where McCain didn't even know the kind of car he drove. I think this really says something about who he is and what his level of understanding about regular people is--so I want to cross-post my response here on my nice, slow-paced little blog.
(Thanks to Ichingcarpenter for the original post!)
So he has "people" who keep track of his houses, and presumably, filing his state vehicle registration? Did somebody else buy that car for him? Because everytime I wrote my check out to pay my car note, I knew exactly the company I was paying, and the car I was paying for--not that I expect John McCain has to worry about car notes.
That's not just out of touch with the lives of regular Americans, that's out of touch with his own life--where is this guy's head at? Does he know about DMV's, APR's and MPG's? (That last one is on the "are your tires properly inflated" quiz.) Does he know that while he can't keep up with his houses, people across this country can't keep up with their mortgages on their one house? That people are having their cars repo'd while they figure out if they can buy food and still manage the light bill? That people are putting the minimum payment on credit card bills they only thought they'd use to tide them over until something better comes along--when it didn't--while his family can put more than the US median income on their credit card--for a month, and then they can pay it off with a check?
Oh hell no--he does not know how we live. He doesn't know about dollar stores, pay day loans or post-dating checks. He doesn't know about finding co-signers from people you know who have good credit. He does not know about asking for help, getting that turn-off notice, getting that pink slip, facing your spouse and your children and letting them know it isn't going to work, and you don't know how to find a way.
McCain doesn't know us. He doesn't work weekends, and maybe he doesn't know how so many of us only survive because of overtime pay. He does not know that both spouses work their asses off in many households, and they keep it together with pride and anger, because they need to keep it together, and they wish it was better, but the bills come in--
For car insurance. Sometimes they have a health care bill that isn't covered. Sometimes it's some emergency like a repair bill for the plumbing or something--and they have to scrimp because it just isn't always something they can handle in their regular budget. Sometimes it's property taxes. Sometimes it's just an essential thing they have to buy--like a new fridge, because the old one burned out, and that was expensive. So they eat soup for awhile. And clip coupons. John McCain doesn't know about that. He does not know we live day to day, and I work in an office and my knees are so bad I sometimes limp, but I'd pick goddamn lettuce for $50 an hour.
Hell yes I would, stooping and scraping in the sun, to catch every bill and not be afraid something would come up.
He's ignorant. He does not know how important my health care is to me. How scared I am that I'll be on SS Disability someday. How I fucking hate the idea I will be rejected for health care because of a pre-existing condition--I was born--okay? My pre-existing condition is mortality!
I do okay, though. I make okay money. I can survive, but I know people who can't if some disaster hits. They have kids, which I don't, and bills like I don't and they struggle over every fee and imposition the credit economy puts on them. They have minivans with huge gas requirements. They don't know about their future--because a lot of people work in the private sector. I'm a civil servant, I can feel comfortable--not goof-proof, but comfortable. They are out there, at the whims of the economy.
John McCain thinks we're whiners. Oh, Phil Gramm said it, but he tacitly endorses it. He deep down probably believes us day-to-day people, us working class Americans, have done something wrong with our lives, that we aren't doing better. He thinks we're afraid to work, or we don't take responsibility for ourselves, or some other defect stands in our way.
Well, here it is: I can't work harder. I have a good job and I do it well. Extra hours won't even net me extra pay since I have a management title. I take responsibility for my bills and they get paid--but they are high, even for necessities, like electric and gas. I know my electric bill and my gas bill and manage my food expenses and I don't even want to buy clothes when I need them--but my tax return tells me I'm middle class--
That isn't $3 million John McCain.
I vote, and I always voted Democratic, and I always knew why--people like John McCain. He doesn't know about people like me, doing everything right and still feeling like we're scraping by. What the Bush tax cut saves the McCain household is more than three times my household income--that is all I need to know, to grasp why this economic boob, this naif, this useless kept man, this Mr. Cindy Hensley--has no business trying to be president of this country at this time. Yes I said that--
Yes I meant it.
He does not know America, he is a foreigner from some rich place I can't afford a ticket to. And we can not afford him in office--wasting our tax dollars on war and tax cuts for the rich and corporate giveaways to the people who donate to his insensate concupiscent money-lovin' campaign coffers. And if he's old enough now and confused enough--don't even wonder if his lobbyists will run his zombified behind in 2012, being more or less what the Mayans predicted.
Did I say I don't like John McCain?
Well. I don't like him.
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