McCain at the Fair

He ate a pork chop on a stick. But he didn't get a fried Twinkie, much to his dismay he told me. John McCain made his return to Iowa today. He spent an hour or so at the Iowa State Fair. He came last year, as well. McCain told me he regretted that he and his entourage were allowed to cut into the long line to get that much sought-after pork chop. Not sure what exactly went wrong with the Twinkie expedition.

Someone did brief McCain well though. He joked with me about the corn dog fiasco from the day before when they ran out during the attempt to set the world record for a corn dog chomp. He almost belly-laughed when I told him that I remembered the look on Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman's face when he tore into one of those Twinkies when he stopped by the fair in 2003 during his Prez run.

I talked to McCain following his fundraising luncheon at Des Moines' Wakonda Club. He seems to have no regrets for the celebrity air wars he started with his commercial lumping Barack Obama in with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. No regrets at all. "You got to have some humor in this kind of campaign", he told me. He said he just wanted to show Obama "is against off-shore drilling and wants to raise your taxes." Clearly, the tax issue was part of his talking points. He mentioned I think three different times that Obama would raise taxes. He will not, he said adamantly.

McCain denies that his mom called his original Obama/Paris/Britney ad "stupid." I have a little difficulty figuring it out. The web site, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/, posted an audio clip that claims McCain's mother, Roberta, did say the ad was stupid. Here's the clip. McCain told me, "I don't think my mom said that. She hadn't seen it." But then he said, "my mom's 96. Whatever she wants to say, it's fine with me." So, did she call it "stupid" or not...what do you think?