SEDONA, ARIZ. — A political gaffe, it is said, occurs when a politician inadvertently tells the truth.
Thus did John McCain's frank admission that he doesn't know how many homes he and his wife own spark the biggest, nastiest mud fight of the presidential campaign.
"I think -- I'll have my staff get back to you," the presumptive Republican nominee said when asked about his homes by Politico.com, the website reported Thursday. "It's condominiums where -- I'll have them get to you."
McCain's candor came as a godsend to rival Barack Obama, whose Democratic campaign has appeared to suffer under relentless attacks from McCain. For the first time, opinion polls this week showed the race effectively tied.
Under pressure to fight back, Obama seized on McCain's stumble Thursday, ridiculing him as grievously out of touch with middle-class Americans at a time of falling housing prices, soaring energy costs and widespread economic distress.
Obama also slammed McCain's claim this week that America's economic fundamentals were strong and his comment last weekend, which aides said was a joke, that he defined someone as rich if they earned more than $5 million.
"I guess if you think that being rich means that you've got to make $5 million and if you don't know how many houses you have, then it's not surprising that you might think the economy was fundamentally strong," Obama told supporters at a community college in Chester, Va.
"But if you're like me and you've got one house, or if you were like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so they don't lose their home, you might have a different perspective."
As a final zinger, Obama added, "By the way, the answer is John McCain has seven homes."
McCain and his wealthy wife, Cindy, have four homes -- in Arizona, California and Virginia -- worth about $9 million on local tax rolls. The McCains also own at least four other residential properties as investments or for use by other family members, public records show. All of the properties are held in the name of Cindy McCain and her dependent children through partnerships, limited liability companies and trusts.
With Obama preparing to name his running mate, perhaps as early as today, and party stalwarts starting to gather in Denver for the Democratic National Convention next week, Democrats could barely contain their glee at McCain's unforced error.
