Call it a hunch, but I don’t think John McCain’s remarks at a biker rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, yesterday are going to help him win over women voters.
McCain felt so comfortable at the event that he even volunteered his wife for the rally’s traditional beauty pageant, an infamously debauched event that’s been known to feature topless women.
“I encouraged Cindy to compete,” McCain said to cheers. “I told her with a little luck she could be the only woman ever to serve as first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.”
In this case, it wasn’t just a question of feeling “comfortable” — McCain read these comments from a prepared text, as the video shows.
And what is the Miss Buffalo Chip Beauty Pageant? I’m glad you asked.
This description from ESPN seems to summarize the event nicely:
Buffalo Chip has a reputation for that sort of thing. It holds a Miss Buffalo Chip contest every night, which is essentially a topless beauty pageant. And occasionally bottomless, too. During a drenching rain Wednesday night, the contest broke up into smaller groups and one woman wound up dancing naked on a bar top. Her boyfriend/husband saw her and angrily dragged her away as she struggled to put her pants back on and muttered something about how, “It’s only this one week a year.”
Josh Marshall added:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/207172.php
We wanted to show you a bit more of what the contest is like. Unfortunately, we were worried that posting the videos could lead to TPM being banned from many corporate intranets. So we’re going to link to this video of the Bikini phase of the contest, complete with simulated fellatio and banana coddling. There’s also this Sturgis ‘pickle-licking’ contest. But we’re not sure if that’s part of the Beauty Pageant or not.
That John McCain, what a classy guy.