The Advocate for Small Business?

For at least the fourth time, I saw an McCain campaign ad last night that really fries me. It's an attack ad accusing Barack Obama of knowing nothing about small businesses because he has never run a small business. And this is coming from John McCain? And since when has he run a small business? What does he know about the small businesses of the struggling middle class?

McCain, the son of an admiral, went from the bottom of the class at the Naval Academy, to a career as navy pilot. When he retired from the navy, he went directly into politics, supported very comfortably by his second wife's money. Cindy's tax return for 2006 indicates an income of more than six million dollars. This is not a list of her assets; this is her income from her assets. That's $500,000 per month, or $16,000 per day. The McCains own nine houses and a fleet of cars. I wouldn't call Cindy McCain the owner of a "small business," and John McCain was very specifically excluded from ownership of this "small business" by Cindy's father in his will. In fact, Cindy inherited a very lucrative beer distributing business from her father. She didn't build it, and McCain has had no part in running it. He has spent most of their married life commuting to Washington. Perhaps if you compare the Cindy McCain's business to MicroSoft, you might call it a small business; but try comparing it to the dry cleaners down the street. Small business indeed. What hogwash.

Certainly just because the McCains have money does not mean that everything in their life has been a bed of roses. He was a prisoner of war; she has battled drug addiction. None of us can look at another's life from the outside and know their troubles or lack of them, but don't tell me, John McCain, that you know what it's like to run a small business because you haven't a clue.