Kos Mulls McCain Ranch Theme

by David Safier

Maybe the McCain Ranch idea is catching on. Kos noted it in his Midday open thread.

“Was McCain really trying to pretend he has a ranch?” he asks and links to an article in The Washington Independent, McCain’s Cowboy Persona. The writer, John Dougherty, once worked for the Phoenix New Times and is now freelancing out of Flagstaff. Here’s what he writes:

The steady reference to the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s “Arizona ranch” projects a powerful image of the American cowboy that has long played an important role in presidential politics. The description of McCain’s sliver of Arizona’s outback as a “ranch,” however, is misleading at best. And, perhaps inadvertently, it allows McCain to obscure his carpetbagger role in Arizona politics with a veneer of American mythology.

[snip]

in McCain’s case, his Yavapai County hideout wouldn’t even qualify as a ranchette — a term sometimes used derisively in the West to describe 40-acre parcels carved out of what were once-sprawling working cattle ranches. McCain’s acreage is barely half that, coming in at a cozy 20.8 acres.

McCain, in fact, doesn’t own his little slice of mesquite-studded high-desert, on the banks of Oak Creek, a lovely stream that meanders into the Verde River, one of the state’s rivers most endangered by development. McCain’s “ranch” is part of a trust and a limited partnership controlled by his wife — the Cindy McCain Hensley Family Trust and the Sedona Hidden Valley Limited Partnership. The property includes a couple of houses and outbuildings with an assessed value of $1.7 million, according to the Yavapai County Assessor’s Office.

The property is located in a “subdivision” where there is no cattle roping, branding or herding of heifers. Far from a ranch, McCain’s getaway is really nothing more than a retreat. But the retired Navy captain and surge advocate certainly doesn’t want the media stating that McCain went to his “Arizona retreat” for the weekend, lest that conjure up images of French cowardice.

[snip]

McCain’s no cowboy. And he’s not a rancher. In fact, he’s barely an Arizonan. He swept into the state in 1981, on the arm of his bride, Cindy Henley, a liquor distribution heiress. Within one year, he was a member of Congress, financing his 1982 campaign with hundreds of thousands of dollars in beer money. McCain’s spent most of the next 26 years in Washington, as his wife raised the children in Phoenix and other locales.

McCain does not own or spend time at anything remotely close to an “Arizona ranch.” Call it a vacation home, hideaway, getaway, compound or, perhaps, what it actually is — a retreat.

Nice work, Dougherty. Hey, traditional media, can we have a little more McCain unmasking like this and a little less “Ranch” dressing?