Democrashield.com

I just can’t understand how any Democrat can support Hillary Clinton anymore.

The latest line of attack coming from her campaign is–get this–that Barack Obama is an elitist.

That’s right, Hillary Clinton is using one of the most tired, overplayed but ubiquitous right-wing smears against a fellow Democrat. Thankfully, her attacks aren’t playing well among Democrats in Pennsylvania, but it’s still a dangerous line of attack.

Back in 2000, the right-wing tried to portry Al Gore as a nerdy, intellectual elitist. Back in 2004 they tried to do the same to John Kerry; Kerry was born to a middle-class family on a military base in Colorado, while George W. Bush was born into one of the wealthiest, most poweful families in America. Yet it was Kerry–not Bush–who got painted as elitist. More recently, the right-wing tried to portray John Edwards as elitist; John Edwards, who was born into a poor southern family, who was a self-made man who earned every single cent he ever had in his life.

If anyone in this Presidential election is elitist, it’s not Barack Obama. Obama went from being a low-paid community organizer and part-time professor to being a state senator and then a U.S. Senator; the only major source of income he’s ever had were his bestselling novels. Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton have both penned bestselling novels of their own, and I’m sure Bill’s speaking fees alone have provided the Clintons with more income than most Americans hope to earn this year.

But then there’s John McCain.

You might not know this, but John McCain is one of the wealthiest man in the Senate. His wife, Cindy McCain, is the heir to the Anheuser-Busch brewing fortune, a family inheritance worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In fact, Anheuser-Busch was one of McCain’s earliest and biggest political supporters. What does this mean? Well, for starters, McCain and his wife own no fewer than eight houses.

Take a look for yourself:

Budweiser, then NASCAR’s official beer, is brewed by Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc., whose products have made Cindy McCain and her family a fortun

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The McCains’ marriage has mixed business and politics from the beginning, according to an expansive review by The Associated Press of thousands of pages of campaign, personal finance, real estate and property records nationwide. The paperwork chronicles the McCains’ ascent from Arizona newlyweds to political power couple on the national stage.

As heiress to her father’s stake in Hensley & Co. of Phoenix, Cindy McCain is an executive whose worth may exceed $100 million. Her beer earnings have afforded the GOP presidential nominee a wealthy lifestyle with a private jet and vacation homes at his disposal, and her connections helped him launch his political career — even if the millions remain in her name alone. Yet the arm’s-length distance between McCain and his wife’s assets also has helped shield him from conflict-of-interest problems.

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Within a few years of marrying Cindy Hensley, the daughter of a multimillionaire Anheuser-Busch distributor, John McCain won his first election. He was new to Arizona politics and fundraising in the 1982 House race, and his campaign quickly fell into debt. Personal money — tens of thousands of dollars in loans to his campaign from McCain bank accounts — helped him survive.

Anheuser-Busch’s political action committee was among McCain’s earliest donors. Cindy McCain’s father, James Hensley, and other Hensley & Co. executives gave so much the Federal Election Commission ordered McCain to give some of it back. McCain’s campaign used Hensley office equipment such as computers and copiers, and Cindy McCain personally paid some of the campaign’s bills.

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Cindy McCain’s assets go beyond the family beer company.

She and her children own a minority stake in the Arizona Diamondbacks. The professional baseball team’s chief executive, Jeff Moorad, and former majority owner Jerry Colangelo are McCain fundraisers. Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, a former Diamondback player, appeared in a New Hampshire campaign advertisement for McCain.

Assets held by Cindy McCain alone or with her children also include Anheuser-Busch stock; two condominiums along the California coast worth a total of at least $3 million and Arizona investments in rental medical offices and a parking lot, according to property records and John McCain’s latest financial disclosure reports.

John McCain has seven ch1ildren: two stepsons and a daughter from his first marriage, and two sons, a daughter and an adopted daughter from his second. McCain’s financial disclosure reports do not identify the children who share assets with Cindy McCain.

Arizona is a community property state, so McCain may share possessions his wife didn’t inherit, such as their primary home. Cindy McCain, through a family trust, sold the family mansion in Phoenix for $3.2 million and bought a $4.6 million Phoenix condo in 2006. The couple may also jointly own a condo in Arlington, Va., assessed at $847,800. McCain’s campaign and Hensley declined to say whether the couple has communal property.

John McCain held a barbecue recently for reporters at a two-story cabin near Sedona, Ariz., that sits on 15 acres owned by his wife’s family trust and a real estate partnership in her name. The property includes four single-family homes and is worth nearly $1.8 million.

If anyone’s an elitist in this election, it’s John McCain. The sad thing about Hillary’s misguided attack is that McCain is now echoing her remarks, trying to portray a self-made man like Barack Obama as an elitist. But at the end of the day, John McCain will fly home to one of his eight houses on his wife’s corporate jets.

It’s time for Hillary Clinton to drop out; at this point, she’s throwing fuel on a fire that’s going to be hard enough for we Democrats to fight as it is.