Via TPM, John McCain, at the Sturgis Rally:
Indeed, McCain felt so comfortable at the event that he even volunteered his wife for the rally’s traditional beauty pageant, an infamously debauched event that’s been known to feature topless women.
“I encouraged Cindy to compete,” McCain said to cheers. “I told her with a little luck she could be the only woman ever to serve as first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.”
Clearly Obama has a problem with women voters.
*** Update ***
From the comments:
So what if McCain volunteered his wife for a debauched, misogynistic event and also called her a c**t and a trollop?
Obama said “periodically”! ! !
I am waiting for Susie Tompkins Buell to weigh in with her deep and important thoughts.
justin
100 bucks nobody cares unless obama says something about pimping out his wife nekked.
TR
Only a chronic bullshitter like McCain would want his wife to be “Miss Buffalo Chip.”
Davis X. Machina
PUMA’s, this is the man you’re voting for, because of the sexism that infests the Democratic party. Look hard. No one’s making you do this….
The Dangerman
Oh, yeah, campaign at Sturgis – THAT sounds like a good idea. Next up, Burning Man.
The Moar You Know
Well, at least he’s using the term “woman” these days in reference to his wife. Progress is progress.
Zifnab
Wait, his current wife or the new model he’ll be picking up after November?
dorkboy
He’s so mavericky! xoxoxo
/MSM
Zifnab
Also,
I CAN HAZ VALUES VOTERS?
Every evangelical who ever bitched about Clinton and casts his vote for John McCain just vetoed his moral high ground rights until 2012.
David Robinson
I hope that works out better than her cookie recipe did.
Shinobi
Nothing says “Elect me President!” like showing off your trophy wife to the horny masses.
Davis X. Machina
Zifnab, they don’t give a flying fcuk about the moral high ground. The GOP is their team, and it doesn’t matter what they do so long as they win.
Moses came down from Mt. Sinai not with two stone tablets, but one big foam-rubber “We’re #1!” finger.
The average evangelical voter’s preference for the GOP has all the moral or theological content as the average denizen of Yawkey Way’s preference for the Olde Towne Team.
mikesdak
The Buffalo Chip also once had a competition for “Zucchini Queen” (use your imagination). I wonder if she’d like to enter that?
Dreggas
I personally would not want to see Cindy McCain’s tits or her va-jay-jay for that matter, the reason being is we know where they have been and there are some things you can’t un-see.
Andrew
You liberals and your nasty sarcasm! You know you’re just alienating the pro-misogyny voting block, right?
Dreggas
Oh and given the brough-ha-ha over Obama’s common sense tire pressue statement I suggest McCain now adopt a new campaign slogan opposed to Obamas “We are the ones we have been waiting for” to state, quite factually “We are the morans we have been waiting for”.
Go ahead jackasses, make the bumper sticker, it’d at least be truth in advertising.
Zifnab
I honestly think you sell the evangelicals short on their sincerity. Anyone who coughs up thousands of dollars a month to a holy roller church, or dresses in mormon underpants every day and whips himself for having impure thoughts, or has twenty kids because – hey – that’s what god intended… these aren’t people who take their faith trivially.
The GOP finally successfully played the “scary pervert” card against Clinton after he kept beating them on their own southern turf because a great many independent conservative leaning voters take fidelity very seriously. This SHOULD hurt McCain’s chances in the values voter heartland immensely, but the gate-keepers of information dissemination will politely forget it ever happened.
If they ran this wall to wall on the 700 Club without comment, evangelicals would retract from McCain in revulsion. If the American Family Association put out an email in protest, McCain would be hurt deeply.
That’s not going to happen for very obvious reasons, but it doesn’t change how evangelical and Republican aren’t synonymous.
Krista
So what if McCain volunteered his wife for a debauched, misogynistic event and also called her a c**t and a trollop?
Obama said “periodically”! ! !
Dave
For Cindy’s sake I hope McCain doesn’t find out about the I-Tit-a-Rod Race in Portland, Oregon.
Dreggas
I think, by volunteering Cindy, McCain was angling for the Mongol vote.
nightjar
I can hear Tweety now declaring MCcain an every day guy you’d love to throw back a beer with, while chunking quarters at the Pole Dancers from your neighborhood Pub.. Now how American is that!
Davis X. Machina
If they ran this wall to wall on the 700 Club without comment, evangelicals would retract from McCain in revulsion. If the American Family Association put out an email in protest, McCain would be hurt deeply.
Maybe ten or fifteen years ago, Zifnab, but if they ran it on TBC or the like today, the faithful would just go watch something else, and then go vote for McCain.
From beyond the grave, the dead Vince ‘Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing’ Lombardi has done what the living Jefferson Davis, Adolph Hitler and Josef Stalin could not do, destroy the American Republic.
CFisher
I’ll helpfully propose a new slogan John McCain can use.
John McCain: Dedicated to upholding the Bush and Clinton legacies. (Sure, they’re the worst aspects of both legacies, but that’s beside the point.)
jake
This is the only way Team STR8TALKXPRESS could think of to prove McCane isn’t an elitist.
Wow.
Sturgis also brought us the Pickle Licking Contest.
[Insert Bob Allen joke here].
Dreggas
Sorry zif, but in this case at least it’s A) his own wife and B) not a boy.
Dreggas
Forgot to add to my last post. I doubt the fundagelicals would get worked up given those facts.
Ninerdave
What high ground?
Nylund
Who am I to argue with a husband about his wife? If John called Cindy a sweetheart, I’d take his word for it. So why should I not if he calls her a c#nt and a trollop? But, never will I stand for anyone calling Cindy a whore. After all, its she who has all the money, and he who is getting paid.
Dreggas
There is an argument to be made that he should be paying her though…
AkaDad
I think America is ready for a First Lady who wants to show us her tits.
Dreggas
Oh, John, I eagerly await your take on this.
Cat In Seattle
McCain needs to read his Bible a little closer. Queen Vashti was banished because her husband ordered her to parade naked around his friends at a drunken banquet he was having, he told his servants to serve anything and as much as anyone wanted. Vashti was not exactly banished for refusing to obey the king, she was banished because Xerxes and his consultants were afraid their own wives would follow suit and become bold enough to refuse any more stoopid demands … Read Esther 1:1-18. While Vashti is often treated by history as if she “deserved” being banished, the truth is she had the kahunas to stand up and refuse to be demeaned that way and it terrified those in power. In Persia where women were nothing more than slaves. A thousand years before Jesus. Need I say more?
Cat In Seattle
JC
Uhmmm…it’s a joke, right? In context, I bet it was pretty funny too.
Now – of course, if Obama had made this joke, there would be mass chaos in the halls of the media mavens, Chris Matthews would be clutching his pearls, all the Fox team would be saying just how ghetto Obama is, etc.
That shows our “liberal” media.
But, outside of the mad media double standard environment, I find McCain’s joke rather humorous…
Zifnab
Touche.
Cat In Seattle
McCain needs to read his Bible a little closer. Queen Vashti was banished because her husband ordered her to parade naked around his friends at a drunken banquet he was having, he told his servants to serve anything and as much as anyone wanted. Vashti was not exactly banished for refusing to obey the king, she was banished because Xerxes and his consultants were afraid their own wives would follow suit and become bold enough to refuse any more stoopid demands … Read Esther 1:1-18. While Vashti is often treated by history as if she “deserved” being banished, the truth is she had the kahunas to stand up and refuse to be demeaned that way and it terrified those in power. In Persia where women were nothing more than slaves. A thousand years before Jesus.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Esther%201:1-18;&version=31;
Need I say more?
Cat In Seattle
P.S. I found it interesting when I was researching this passage that http://www.bible.com excludes the whole above passage and will not show it when you type into their search “Esther 1:1-18” or even “Esther 1:1”. Wonder if it is run by a bunch of so-called “fundamentalists” who aren’t even literal or “fundamental” enough to print their own 5000 year old book accurately. Maybe THEY are afraid of anyone with courage as well… I’m just sayin’ …
Dreggas
I commented on this over at the GOS:
It’s one thing to volunteer for this it’s another to say “I volunteer my old lady”.
LanceThruster
This is great news for Hillary!
Genine
Yes, but “periodically” is WAY worse! Don’t forget he said “claws come out” and “Sweetie!” How can you compare “c*unt” to “sweetie”!
It would take TEN c-Words to equal the offensiveness of “Sweetie”!
Noah
Oh My God!. John McCain is the original gangsta, and Cindy McCain is a Masta Drug Smuggla!
Napoleon
One thing, this election season has been comic gold. I never thought I would live to see a Presidential candidate volunteer his wife for something like this at a Harley biker gathering (I remember Carter taking shit for his Playboy interview).
Napoleon
TPM now has a follow up post on the contest up.
Krista
That’s true, Genine. My goodness, I call people “sweetie” all the time — young, old, male, female. Really, I’m surprised that I have any friends left after insulting them all like that.
Well, lesson learned. The next time I send an email to my friend’s 6-year-old daughter, I won’t insult her like that.
I’ll call her a c*nt instead.
Napoleon
You know, this thing is going to be wall to wall on the late night shows. It will be to good for them not to flog it to death.
John Cole
That is kind of precisely the point.
Dreggas
O/T but Obama favors killing live babies you have to be fucking kidding me.
the whacker
I wonder if McBuffalochip was wearing his $520 Ferragamo loafers.
D-Chance.
If Big Mitch had been the butt of the joke, we would have heard no end from the Liberals over the racist nature of the humor.
Dreggas
more O/T but jesus H Christ
dbrown
McSame wants his wife to win the title Mss Buffalo CHIP! You mean he wants her to have the title first lady and pile of steaming cow shit!? and the media has made a pass on this? He wants his wife to compete with some ‘topless’ biker woman and earn the right to be called SHIT!? Only in bushworld and its media bend over can they have another would ignore this insult to woman.
Genine
**nods sagely** That’s the only way she’ll grow to have any esteem or self-respect.
Though I don’t know what could be done about the damage that has already happened.
Maybe, therapy?
But I’m worse than you are, Krista. I still call people “sweetie”. Don’t be shocked. I know its wrong. But I can’t help it.
I have an illness.
demimondian
How is that possible, Genine? Krista is…CANADIAN.
Punchy
When I’m trying to impress the broads, I just walk up to chicks and shout “BOOBIES!!”. Works with those da hoes every time.
Krista
You sir, have a bright future in the Republican Party.
Napoleon
Yo
Only if he is wearing a wetsuit or the person with boobies is a transexual.
Dreggas
No, no see she’s to young to be a c*nt, for now she’s just a trollop.
Dork
Well, that seals it. I’ve made up my mind. Obama it is. I look forward to fewer distractions in restaurants and lesser punks on my lawn.
Splitting Image
Actually, I found the passage by searching for “Vashti”. I’m guessing their database is keyed to words in the text but not book and chapter names. Esther’s name probably doesn’t appear in chapter 1.
Maybe they needed to do it so you can find references to “Matthew”,”John” or “Isaiah” without generating a link to every line of those books.
Krista
/sticks tongue out at demi
KRK
This is just more evidence that the success of Obama’s European trip, especially the Berlin speech, really got under McCain’s skin. His handlers needed to find him a comparable “event,” so they picked a ready-made crowd that would be at least plausibly sympathetic to McCain and would be obviously having a good time.
Brachiator
Bikers rule! Nobody cares about this. Seriously. And I’m not sure that many would perceive this as sexist, except for the perpetual bluenoses. Yeah, some fundies might get their noses out of joint, but they are not the sum total of the Republican Party.
This kind of thing actually makes McCain seem more like an average guy, and it also is in keeping with his past image as a wild and sexy fighter pilot.
I’ve heard guys (obviously not women) say that they will vote for McCain because he is a war hero and because his wife is a smoking hot blond MILF. His actual record doesn’t matter. He and his wife look like the kind of people they can see living in the White House.
The trollop story has been around for a while. Obviously people don’t care and view it as a private matter between husband and spouse. Although it is objectionable, no one has ever connected the dots between this comment and McCain’s ability to be president. He is hot headed. He made a terrible remark. But no one knows if he apologized for it.
By the way, I think that McCain would be judged differently on this had he made the comment to a staffer.
There is a double standard at work here for many voters, but there is not much that one can do about it. Being a white male is the default setting for a presidential candidate in the American political consciousness. The remarks and behavior of a nonwhite candidate — or a woman — is going to be viewed through a different prism.
Chris Johnson
Unlike some people I can’t fault the evangelicals’ sincerity. I don’t believe this is likely to actually help McCain hang on to values voters… I think they’re gonna feel ripped off, and maybe they’ll stay home, but I hope some of them will switch over to Obama. You can make an argument for how Obama’s platform and intentions are closer to what Jesus would do than the way McCain carries on- particularly if there are some more nasty moments out of him.
Dreggas
Not true, he only would have a bright future if he was a professional tap-dancer who specialized in bathroom ballet or had a thing for diapers or had any variation on the screen name “maf”.
Ripley
Well, in his defense, you’re wrong. A buffalo chip is an old, hard, dried up pile of shit. There’s nothing fresh or steamy about it.
(You can take the boy off the cattle farm, and all that rot…)
Dreggas
Shouldn’t McCain himself be a shoe-in then?
Genine
Yes, but I’m African-American…. how does that size up on the right-o-meter?
I know I’m above the French, but below the British. I’m equal, above or below the Hispanic, depending on which group McCain is talking to or if Lou Dobbs is talking to. Hmmm…. maybe I’m equal to Canadian? I don’t know.
**panics** Oh, noes! I don’t know my place in the world.
Richardson
Man, this is going to be awesome!!!
The media will be all over this on an endless loop, 24/7 with nonstop discussions concerning how these comments disgrace the candidate, how women will never vote for him now, and how unqualified these statements make him for the presidency.
I can’t wait to see the damage control arising from….oh wait…you say, John McCain made these comments and not Obama? Well, nothing to see here then. Let’s move right along please. The McMedia has far better things to report upon than this trivial affair – speaking of which, did you here about McCain’s latest ad knocking Obama – we sure need to spend a few weeks discussing the positive merits of that one.
Brachiator
The Book of Esther is probably an appropriation of a story out of Persian mythology. Even historians who have worked hard to try to place the story in history try to make the king of the story Artaxerxes II Mnemon instead of Xerxes. Consequently, it is hard to try to make the case that the story says anything about Persian women in ancient history.
And of course, neither the reigns of Xerxes (485–465 BC) nor Artaxerxes (ca. 436 – 358 BC) are a thousand years before Jesus.
Dreggas
Obama calls it like it is: “The GOP takes pride in being ignorant”
Also calls them the “L” word and not the one that’s on showtime.
The Moar You Know
Fixt.
Fern
Or a wench.
dbrown
So McSame’s first lady will be a ‘dried out’ pile of steaming cow shit – correction applied
Dreggas
Jerome Corsi smacked down by Contessa Brewer on MSNBC.
demimondian
Yeah, I know that…I’m ignoring that for now.
Remember that the five-minute hate is always directed at only one enemy of the nation at a time, and, (far) right now, that’s the Canuckistani.
Don’t worry, though, you’ll get your turn.
AnneLaurie
Well, *sure*, Mr. DXM! After all, this “politics” stuff is just another sporting event, where everyone shows up in their team’s colors, has a few brews, shouts insults at the opposition, lets their inhibitions down for a couple hours & goes home happy. It’s not like choosing one team over the other might have anything to do with the real world, or the economy, or our own and our kids’ futures!…
Future historians, if there are any, will condemn the Media Village Idiots and Beltway Courtiers who developed this “Politics is all about the horse race” trophe as more destructive to global humanity than the Golden Horde at its worst.
Of course McCain (“Exactly as
misogynistmacho as the C-Plus Augustus, and you actually *can* have a beer with Old John!”)is basing his whole campaign on this happy fantasy, because anyone who understands that “Politics is the question of who eats, and who gets eaten” is not going to vote for a lazy, touchy, half-bright ‘tough guy’ with a life-long history of service to the megacorporatist robber barons. And our Media Village Idiots will cheer his erractic progress and laud every stumble as proof that Old John McLame is One of Us (unlike that slick overpaid uppity highdollar eee-letist on the other team, who thinks he’s above lavishing the MVIs with the attention & bbq to which they believe themselves entitled in their self-selected roles as referees.) Bread and circuses, beyotches!Genine
Oh, goodie! Yay!
lurker
You’d think this sort of think would bother the PUMAs, who are still obsessing over Obama calling a woman reporter “sweetie,” once (for which he apologized).
Well….no…
http://www.yestodemocracy.com/yes_to_democracy_no_to_pu/2008/08/mccain-voluntee.html
Dreggas
There’s a joke, albeit a bad one about this…
Scrutinizer
Huh? How did you get from
to parading nekkid around his friends?
Delia
This story must be a big mistake. I just checked NOIQ for the first time in weeks, and they have no record of St. McCain offering his wife up for a biker slut contest. You’ll be relieved to know, however, that Agent Flowbee is hot on the case of the faked Obama birth certificate.
neal peart
Geddy, Alex and I really don’t care if Mrs. McCain wants to be Ms. Blue Chip and has to fuck every biker in South Dakota to win. We also don’t care if McCain even said this in public. We are not prude.
We think it is a good strategy for Sen. Obama to ridicule the 28% percenters – calling them ignorant is a good start. He’ll never win them over anyways so he may as well call them for what they are. Ignorant.
Martin
Done!
Sasha
I think Pandagon nailed it:
jbarntt
Hi John,
Your blog has truly hit the level of Democratic Underground. Did McCain really want his wife to participate in the beauty contest at this event, or was he simply making a joke ? Did she participate ? Did she take offense ?
Of course not.
This is on the level of Obama is a Muslim crap.
I found your blog a few years ago and liked your centrist/libertarian perspective. No problem that you have changed your views to that of a standard liberal Democrat, but when all you are is an echo of the likes of DU, I don’t get it. You used to be thoughtful, now it’s just boilerplate.
Ricky
Since even ABC news is blogging on Miss Cow Chip, I hardly think John should hold his head in shame. Check out the comments over at ABC’s Political Radar.
They are cheering Cindy on while fighting the Muslim takeover at the same time. Be sure and check “steveo”
at 7:41 p.m. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/08/mccain-voluntee.html?cid=125399090
Jrod
So, jbarntt, do you suppose that if Obama said something similar, our media’s reaction would be to chuckle at his silly joke and move on?
Or would Obama’s joke be the top story on the 24-hour news channels for a week, while the bobbleheads discuss whether any man so arrogant that he’s willing to whore out his own wife was fit to be President?
That’s the point that John was making, not that McCain was at all serious.
Pete
McCain fits in perfectly with the Harley subculture. Every weekend motorcyclists have to put up with these ignorant white trash assholes puttering around on good mountain roads, going incredibly slow, flying giant POW/MIA/’Merican flags, and causing traffic jams on otherwise open roads. The Harley crowd even holds cars up. God forbid they should ever move to the side of their lane and let the faster folks pass – that wouldn’t be very bad ass I guess.
Everyone cops a bad ass “biker” attitude, no one knows shit about bikes or how to actually ride, and they don’t even make an effort to hide their homophobia and racism at events like this. The irony is that a lot of these douche bag hicks think it’s completely straight and defensible to go around dressed in leather chaps, vests, and jackets with frills. At least they’ll all be dead in 15-20 years, and since Harley-Davidson is geared almost exclusively now towards building nostalgia vanity pieces for old rednecks with a Wild One fetish it’ll probably start to tank too, a la Ford and GM. McCain should be able to completely sweep the Harley demographic – they’re the mega-SUV driving tards of the broader motorcycling demo. Fuck McCain and fuck Harley-Davidson too.
Pete
And one more thing – as far as service members being able to buy bikes while overseas through AAFES is concerned, the fact that HD has a monopoly on this market is criminal. Soldiers and officers should be able to buy what they want, and the un-crusty ones don’t want glorified wheelchairs (Harley’s).
AAFES needs to give Yamaha, Honda, Ducati, BMW, Suzuki, and KTM (just for starters) access into this market.
John Spragge
Never mind that the Sturgis Rally has sex/entertainment/drinking complexes encroaching on Mato Paha (Bear Butte), the place more sacred to the People of the Plains (Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho) than any other. When Senator Obama visited the Wailing Wall, did he offer to have a strpperama set up?