Obama's Oregon camp: ‘McCain is absolutely out of touch’

After McCain stumbled over a question Wednesday on how many homes he owned, Barack Obama’s Oregon campaign was quick to denounce McCain as out of touch with Oregonians Thursday.

In an interview with Politico, McCain had to pause and think to answer the question how many homes he owned before saying, “I think — I'll have my staff get to you. Its condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."

After the story hit the web, Obama’s Oregon spokeswoman Sahar Wali said that if McCain did not know how many properties he had, he probably couldn’t relate to the effect of the housing crisis in Oregon. The Beaver State had 3,199 pre-foreclosure filings in July, a new record.

”Given that Sen. McCain doesn't know how many homes he owns, it's no surprise that he also doesn’t have a plan to provide relief to the millions of American families struggling to afford the homes they have,” Wali said.

Wali also pointed out that Oregon ranked 17th in the nation for foreclosures. But McCain spokesman Rick Gorka said the Obama team was simply playing politics with the issue, and that Obama was certainly not struggling to get by either.

“The level of hypocrisy is astounding,” Gorka said. “I really think it’s funny that Senator Obama wants to get into a debate on housing. He is not exactly poor either.”

Gorka also said that McCain has worked with several Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) to produce new policy to help people save their homes.

“Senator McCain is working hard and has put forward bold proposals to help people get out of the mortgage crisis, including a plan to keep between 200,000 and 400,000 families from losing their home,” Gorka said.

“Senator McCain is also against raising taxes so people can keep their home, while Obama wants to increase the corporate tax, which is the second highest in the world, and reverse the Bush tax cuts so that someone who makes $32,000 a year will have to pay more.”

But Wali said that McCain’s comments showed he did not understand the economic difficulties that Oregon families were facing.

“This is not something that relates to an Oregon family that has one house,” Wali said. “He is absolutely out of touch with Oregonians. But Barack Obama will pass a middle class tax cut that gives 95 percent of working Americans a tax cut of up to $1,000. McCain’s economic plan leaves middle class families wanting.”