http://www.newsweek.com/id/160091 When you have seven homes, that’s a lot of garages to fill. After the fuss over the number of residences owned by the two presidential nominees, NEWSWEEK looked into the candidates’ cars. And based on public vehicle-registration records, here’s the score. John and Cindy McCain: 13. Barack and Michelle Obama: one.
One vehicle in the McCain fleet has caused a small flap. United Auto Workers president Ron Gettelfinger, an Obama backer, accused McCain this month of “flip-flopping” on who bought daughter Meghan’s foreign-made Toyota Prius. McCain said last year that he bought it, but then told a Detroit TV station on Sept. 7 that Meghan “bought it, I believe, herself.” (The McCain campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
Obama’s lone vehicle also is a green machine, a 2008 Ford Escape hybrid. He bought it last year to replace the family’s Chrysler 300C, a Hemi-powered sedan. Obama ditched the 300C, once 50 Cent’s preferred ride, after taking heat for driving a guzzler while haranguing Detroit about building more fuel-efficient cars.
McCain’s personal ride, a 2004 Cadillac CTS, is no gas sipper, but it should make Detroit happy because it’s made by General Motors. “I’ve bought American literally all my life and I’m proud,” McCain said in the interview with Detroit’s WXYZ-TV. But the rest of his fleet is not all-American. There’s a 2005 Volkswagen convertible in the garage along with a 2001 Honda sedan. Otherwise, there’s a 2007 half-ton Ford pickup truck, which might come in handy on the Sedona ranch; a vintage 1960 Willys Jeep; a 2008 Jeep Wrangler; a 2000 Lincoln; and a 2001 GMC SUV. The McCains also own three 2000 NEV Gem electric vehicles, which are bubble-shaped cars popular in retirement communities.
Only the Cadillac is registered in the candidate’s name. Cindy McCain’s name is on 11 vehicles, though not the one she actually drives. That car, a Lexus, is registered to her family’s beer-distributor business and is outfitted with personalized plates that read MS BUD.
Cindy McCain’s ... is outfitted with personalized plates that read MS BUD.
Nothing screams proliterian like personalized plates on the Lexus...and eating Iceberg lettuce....
But hey, the black guy who eats arugula and who grew up on food stamps and self-financed Harvard Law is an elitist.
That’s the same wisdom that says fight bin Laden and al-Qaeda by invading and occupying Iraq.
I don’t think the amount of cars someone owns should count. If you drive around town, you may find several yards with cars in the weeds and on the side of ones house. Do they stop counting if the cars no longer run?
.... The McCains also own three 2000 NEV Gem electric vehicles, which are bubble-shaped cars popular in retirement communities....
Now that is interesting. This is the car that had a subsidy program which came out of McCain’s 2000 campaign, but the program threatened Arizona’s budget back in 2000. Are McCain’s 3 electric cars taxpayer-subsidized?
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Costly Plan to Promote Alternative Fuels Jolts Arizona
By ROSS E. MILLOY
Published: November 2, 2000
It sounded irresistible: buy a car that burns something other than gasoline and the state pays up to 50 percent of the cost; convert an existing gas-burner to alternative fuels and the state pays 100 percent of the cost of the conversion.
No alternative fuels depot at home? Not to worry. The state will cover that $7,000 as well, or up to $400,000 for a commercial alternative-fuels depot. It is all courtesy of a measure proposed and adopted in Arizona at the last minute of a legislative session in April.
Sound too good to be true?
More than 22,000 Arizonans did not think so, and since July they have filed applications for an average of $21,966 each, which would cost the state nearly $500 million from a program that was supposed to cost less than $5 million a year. State officials now say the eventual costs could reach $800 million once applications being processed are counted.
With costs of the program approaching 7 percent of the state’s annual $6 billion budget, Gov. Jane Dee Hull called an emergency session of the State Legislature two weeks ago to enact a one-year moratorium on the program to stop the hemorrhage from the state’s coffers.
‘’Frankly, nobody looked at the big picture when the bill was passed, and I take my share of the blame for signing it,’’ Governor Hull said today. ‘’What we’re trying to do now is mitigate the damage.’’
Meanwhile, the State Senate Finance Committee is holding hearings on the matter, and Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano has begun a criminal investigation into how the Clean Air Act incentives were adopted.
Jeff Groscost, the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives and the creator of the incentives with a 92-page amendment to the Arizona Clean Air Act of 2000 during a late-night conference committee meeting in April, is under increasing scrutiny for his financial involvement with industries benefiting from the bill’s passage.
Mr. Groscost, a Republican who ran Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign in Arizona, first denied and then admitted last week that he had leased or bought two vehicles from companies run by Nathan Learner, a businessman engaged in gas-to-alternative-fuels conversions. Mr. Groscost also first denied, then admitted, that he was taking advantage of the tax incentives provided by the bill on a vehicle he leased from Mr. Learner.
In the past, Mr. Groscost has also been a lobbyist for natural gas interests, said Dennis Burke, executive director of Arizona Common Cause, a citizens’ public-interest group. ‘’Mr. Groscost has become insensitive to issues of conflict of interest,’’ Mr. Burke said....
House Speaker Jeff Groscost, R-Mesa, said the measure is designed to light a fire under manufacturers. Groscost, who has been a paid political consultant to presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, said the campaign was frustrated when it could not find an alternative-fuel vehicle.
Remember, McCain wants to give $300 million to somebody who will make a better car battery. Sounds like McCain has a few too many friends in this industry to be sending taxpayer money to them!!
I’m not rich and I own 7 vehicles. What’s the big deal? Obama’s girls are way to young to drive. Not so with McCain’s kids.
My question is about the three electric cars which appear to come from a McCain-connected subsidy program that threatened the Ariz. state budget. I did some months ago question the wisdom of McCain’s proposed $300 million “prize” to a battery inventor. He is a little more tangled in this electric car business than he needs to be.
I’m not rich and I own 7 vehicles. What’s the big deal? Obama’s girls are way to young to drive. Not so with McCain’s kids.
My question is about the three electric cars which appear to come from a McCain-connected subsidy program that threatened the Ariz. state budget. I did some months ago question the wisdom of McCain’s proposed $300 million “prize” to a battery inventor. He is a little more tangled in this electric car business than he needs to be.
I’m asking first, did McCain benefit by getting three cars on taxpayer subsidies based on a legislation by his Ariz. campaign manager?
Secondly, just how close is McCain to the electric car industry? He recently promised a $300 million incentive to help that industry.
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Mr. Groscost admits the bill contained several errors, but insists they were unintentional. Some of his detractors aren’t so sure, and have convened a legislative panel to investigate what happened. “Was this a colossal error, or was there something more?” says Democratic Rep. Bill Brotherton. “It certainly gives one pause to wonder if there was intent here.”
The government continued to miss the problems into the summer, when officials of the state Department of Commerce, in charge of administering the program, failed to notify anyone when applications soared to more than 2,000, or four times their projected levels for that time. State officials say that’s because the department wasn’t in charge of the finances, which came out of the general fund.
By late September, word that the program was out of control filtered up to the governor, who inadvertently fanned the flames. She gave two week’s public notice that, effective Oct. 11, the state would spread out all refunds over five years, rather than hand them out in one chunk.
Arizonans stormed the showrooms to beat the deadline. “In hindsight, we should have done one week,” says the governor’s chief of staff, Ted Ferris.
One of the last-minute filers was Ed Wren, a 54-year-old Phoenix lobbyist who had put 112,000 miles on his GMC Yukon over the past five years. He had planned to buy a new Yukon down the road, getting it converted to run on both gas and propane. But this deal was too good, and he leapt into action when he heard of the deadline.
“That obviously accelerated my timetable,” Mr. Wren says. His out-of-pocket expense for the $43,000 Yukon, after state refunds and waivers: about $20,000.
For vehicles that run entirely on alternative fuel, the state paid half the purchase price, as well as the added manufacturing cost from a traditional gas car. That was enough for hundreds of people to line up at the Honda Cars dealership in suburban Mesa, Ariz., which sells a $21,000 Honda Civic GX that burns only natural gas. The cars won’t be able to travel far, though: Their driving range is 200 miles between fill-ups, and only about seven natural-gas refueling stations exist in the Phoenix area. But with the $10,500 tax discount and $4,500 added manufacturing cost, buyers only needed to plunk down about $6,000 to walk away with a brand new car. Sales of the Honda shot up from about 75 for all of last year to more than 500 this year, most of them in the two weeks before the deadline.
When the run finally ended with the one-year moratorium, state officials say, about 20,000 people had signed up for the program, at a cost of about $20,000 each. Gov. Hull hopes to cushion the blow to the state’s budget by spreading it out over several years. Mr. Groscost also plays down the impact, saying money can be scraped together from various sources to help out. He also says the legislature can plug up some of the loopholes, by reinstating the requirement that alternative fuel be used and preventing them from going out of state.
October 26, 2000
There is considerable hand-wringing in the Arizona capitol these days. No wonder. Our Republican governor and her compatriots in the legislature are trying to figure out how to reverse the projected loss of roughly $420 million in state money. That’s the latest estimate of the amount that may be drained from the state treasury to pay consumers who took advantage of a loophole in a new state law. The loophole granted them big bucks if they purchased a vehicle equipped to burn…
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John McCain has three year 2000 cars sold through a loophole legislated by his Ariz. campaign manager. Did the taxpayers buy McCain these three playthings?
