Substantively, a story like this one is fairly low on the priority list. Politically, a story like this one can cause a candidate a bit of a headache.
John McCain kind of stepped in it the other day, here in California, but luckily no one noticed. He was being driven from John Wayne airport to a fundraiser, and he took a quick call from Martin Wisckol of the Orange County Register. Wisckol asked him a series of softball questions so tedious McCain’s driver had to crack the window so the breeze would keep him from passing out, but then this:
WISCKOL: I’d like to ask you a couple questions suggested by voters here. They’re not reporter-type questions.
McCAIN: Sure. It’d be a pleasure.
WISCKOL: When was the last time you pumped your own gas and how much did it cost?
McCAIN: Oh, I don’t remember. Now there’s Secret Service protection. But I’ve done it for many, many years. I don’t recall and frankly, I don’t see how it matters.
In all candor, I’m inclined to cut McCain at least some slack on this one. McCain hasn’t been in a position to pump his own gas for a while, by virtue of his candidacy. (I don’t really expect a 71-year-old presidential candidate to jump out and fill up the tank on a campaign bus.) And while he probably should have a general sense of the price of a gallon of gas — he couldn’t say, “About four bucks”? — McCain almost certainly knows that it’s gone up quite a bit lately, and consumers/voters aren’t happy about it.
In fact, I’m far more concerned about McCain having a ridiculous energy policy than I am about McCain being clueless about the price at the pump. McCain has recently talked about coastal drilling, a “gas-tax holiday,” and some kind of battery bounty. Most of his remarks contradict his previous positions, don’t make any sense, and/or have led to him to get confused about what constitutes a “short-term” benefit. Whether McCain knows the price of a gallon of gas or not is trivia compared to his humiliating incoherence on energy policy.
That said, voters seem to care about whether a presidential candidate is out of touch, especially in a political environment in which the word “elitist” is being thrown around. And on this, McCain might be in trouble.
There was a famous incident in Florida in 1992, when then-President George H.W. Bush was reportedly “amazed” when he saw a supermarket scanner. This was immediately seized on as evidence that Bush was hopelessly out of touch and had been away from “real life” far too long.
As it turns out, Bush got a raw deal on this one, and the story didn’t stand up well to scrutiny. (Bush was apparently impressed by a scanner that could read torn labels, not the regular ol’ scanners we see all the time.) Nevertheless, it became a symbolic moment that undermined his candidacy.
Likewise, McCain might have to worry about the same perceptions. He’s extremely wealthy, thanks to his wife’s family fortune, and owns seven homes. He’s been in Congress for a quarter of a century, and has been a Beltway fixture for about three decades. He routinely travels on his wife’s jet, and his lifestyle leads to mockery like this:
Given this, maybe someone on McCain’s team can let him know what Americans pay for a gallon of gas.