Politifact Update: Eight houses for John & Cindy McCain

[jefferson_dem]

UPDATED: Eight houses for John & Cindy McCain

UPDATED: How many homes John McCain owns became an unlikely campaign issue on Aug. 20, 2008, when he told the Politico Web site that he didn't know the answer.

"I think — I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."

It's not hard to see how McCain got confused. The McCain family owns properties in multiple states under several names.

We checked this issue earlier when it was raised on the campaign trail by Barack Obama's top strategist, David Axelrod. Axelrod was arguing that the McCain campaign is guilty of hypocrisy in trying to paint Obama as an elitist.

“Obviously, his strategists met on the portico of the McCain estate in Sedona — or maybe in one of his six other houses — and decided what line of attack they were going to use,” Axelrod told Adam Nagourney of the New York Times.

The Democratic National Committee has also attacked McCain as being out of touch. In an Aug. 12 news release called “Seven Months of Job Losses for Americans, Seven Houses for McCain,” the DNC said McCain fails to understand the economic difficulties of Americans. Bloggers have repeated the claim and created video tours of the McCain properties.

Initially we confirmed that McCain owns seven homes, but Politico found a third condo that the McCains own in Phoenix, which we missed, and that brings the total to eight. One of their properties, a ranch in Sedona, also has multiple buildings on it that could be counted as additional homes. We count it as one.

The property is owned under several names, including limited liability companies and family trusts.

Public records connect these entities to Cindy McCain, chairwoman of Hensley & Co, a huge Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship that was founded by her parents.

Here's a rundown of the properties and how we get to our total.

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http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/635/