McCain in Sturgis

I don’t know what was sadder, or more depressing: the image of John McCain pandering to the bikers out in Sturgis last week, or the bikers themselves.

Let’s start with McCain: Pimping his wife in the “Miss Buffalo Chip” competition, or rambing about offshore drilling (which, at best, will start producing new oil in about eight years) while missing a crucial Senate vote on renewing Tax Credits for solar power projects (which could start producing more jobs tomorrow, and more clean power almost immediately.

Or how about the bikers themselves? Old, ugly, and stupid is no way to go through life. Nothing like the “Fuck Obama, yeah!” chants to let you know that this country hasn’t come as far as we might wish to believe.

Of course, to many of the bikers in Sturgis, Mrs. McCain represents the ultimate “old lady” (I’ll upgrade her from the more common biker term for a female companion/passenger – “bitch”.) Mrs. McCain gave big daddy John a fortune estimated in the hundreds of millions, and a share in a beer distributorship. The ultimate biker lifestyle!

The local Milwaukee TV news is reporting that the Obama campaign has been running carefuly targeted radio ads in the York, PA and Milwaukee markets, pointing out that McCain had regularly voted against legislation requiring the government to purchase American-made motorcycles. I’ll have to do some fact-checking on this. Now, on principal, such anti-protectionist policy is probably the right thing. But I wonder if this showed up on the radar of those numbskulls out in Sturgis?

Update: I checked out the truth of Obama’s radio ad. The verdict: True. Read the story on PolitiFact.

“Not long ago, a couple hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent. I’ll take the roar of 50,000 Harleys any day,” McCain said.

The announcer then states: “But when it comes to his record, American-made motorcycles like Harleys don’t matter to John McCain. Back in Washington, McCain opposed a requirement that the government buy American-made motorcycles. And he said all buy-American provisions were quote ‘disgraceful.’ Surprised? You shouldn’t be.