Time's Mark Halperin: McCain's inability to remember that he owns seven homes hurts his Obama [View All]

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Ladies and gentlemen, today's "WTF" Moment. I want some of what Halperin was smoking when he connected THESE dots.

:eyes:

Halperin: McCain houses gaffe 'worst moment' for Obama
David Edwards and Andrew McLemore
Published: Sunday August 24, 2008

After Sen. John McCain stumbled over a question about how many houses he owns, many political analysts said it was a huge setback that would alienate middle-class Americans.

Mark Halperin sees the fallout a little differently.

"My hunch is that is gonna be one of the worst moments in the entire campaign for one of the candidates, but it's Barack Obama," he said.

Halperin thinks McCain's inability to remember that he owns seven homes actually hurts his opponent.

Halperin said that the Obama campaign's willingness to run ads about McCain's ignorance of his own properties has "opened the door" for the McCain campaign to launch harsher ads of its own.

He added that the McCain campaign can now attack Obama for his connection to convict Tony Rezko, his time as a member of controversial preacher Rev. Wright's congregation and his alleged ties with 1960s militant Bill Ayers.

When asked, "Don't you think that was gonna come up anyway?" Halperin responded:

"I think it would have been hard for John McCain -- given the way that he says he's gonna run this campaign -- to do all this stuff without the door being opened."

The issues mentioned above have had more than a fair amount of media coverage already, while many McCain gaffes have largely been ignored by the mainstream media.

ABC's George Stephanopoulos talked with Mark Halperin, Donna Brazile, Cokie Roberts and George Will in the video below.

This video is from ABC's This Week, broadcast August 24, 2008: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Halperin_McCain_houses_gaffe_worst_moment_0824.html