Cindy McCain, Biker Chick?

by Teh Nutroots |  Ben Smith:

Meanwhile, at a biker rally in Sturgis, S.D., John McCain appears to have volunteered his wife for a topless beauty pageant:

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.”

I hear defiant redstate-necked Republicans asking: "Why shouldn't John McCain offer her up his wife for the "Bikini Contest" at the Biker event he's attending in Dakota?" 

Why indeed?  Why indeed.  .

Well, there is this (from ESPN via TPM):

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."

Of course for guys of McCain's generation, this was par for the course. Your wife---and his seems like a decent sort [h/t Shakesville]--- is something you wear on your arm.  If you have a trophy wife, why you can display her any time you like to whoever you like. 

I doubt you could make him understand why this makes it seem as if he doesn't have much respect  for his wife or for women generally. 

.

It's true I don't have any special hankering to attend an event which is described by an former attendee as follows:

TPM Reader WR gives us some background/wistful memories ...

I grew up in Western South Dakota, and can tell you that "topless, and occasionally bottomless" barely scratches the surface on Miss Buffalo Chip. There were always rumors about underage contestants and on-stage sex--that was simply what Buffalo Chip stood for in the collective unconscious of teenage boys in the Rapid City area. This amounts to John McCain volunteering his wife for a Girls Gone Wild video. Quite a lady's man, that McCain...

Does it make me effete that this sounds like a vision of Hell to me?  I'm okay with it, if so.

G-Spot says:

Here he is graciously offering up the li'l lady to be a contestant in the Miss Buffalo Chip beauty pageant. Said contest allegedlly is "topless and 'occasionally bottomless...'"

I doubt McCain knew this.  That's not what I find off-putting about this vid.  If you don't see what's off-putting about it, you're probably a Republican.

The Jed Report says:

I think the issue here is that McCain is so out-of-touch that he had no idea what he was talking about. If he knew it was nude event, I can't imagine he would have said he wanted to see Cindy in it. He's not that stupid.

The point I'm making is that while John McCain was trying to position himself as the biker's best friend, the truth is that he's a $520-shoe wearing elitist -- and a total phony at Sturgis. He's got nothing more in common with the Harley-riding bike ralliers there than George Bush does with a true rancher in Texas.

Does America really want another faker in the White House?

But that still ain't why this vid really bothers me.   It's because he's an expensive shoe-wearing elitist who held up his wife like an honest-to-God trophy and said, "Wouldn't you like a look at this?"

Wonkette gets it:

“This is my first time here,” McCain told the crowd of fat, tattooed motorcycle fetishists from the suburbs, “but I recognize that sound. It’s the sound of freedom.” The sound, actually, was just these people revving their foreign-oil powered bikes for no reason at all beyond a childlike delight in destroying everybody else’s peace and quiet. Oh, and then McCain offered Cindy to the motorcyclists, in a nod to the old Hells Angels’ tradition of letting everybody bang your old lady....

[I]t’s just the kind of honor you’d want to see your wife achieve, if you’re the kind of repulsive old misogynist who calls your wife “trollop” and “cunt.”...

Add “Miss Buffalo Chip” to the list of foul things McCain calls his wife — it means “bison shit.”

If you want to see what a rip roaring good ol' time looks like for rugged, macho types like McCain and his pals though, check out the links at TPM.  Melissa McEwen says "Cliff Schechter has a NSFW mash-up that illustrates the exact nature of the "beauty pageant" in which McCain was exhorting his wife to participate."

Memeorandum has more comments.

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Comments

[Steve]

Nothing like a bunch of smelly, beer swilling fat hairy GED grads to move the country forward!

[Bill]

Funny McCain comment. Cindy is hot enough to win it.

Bill