I doubt the InBev acquisition of Anheuser-Busch (I blogged on the business end of the deal here) will have any effect on McCain’s campaign, but it is an interesting idea to float out there. Both candidates seem to be enjoying fairly gloves-off press so far.
From the second (Washington Independent) link:
This could be problematic for the McCain campaign in two ways. First, McCain has been railing against Sen. Barack Obama’s calls to raise the capital-gains tax — which taxes stock dividends. The capital-gains tax rate was lowered to 15 percent as part of President George W. Bush’s 2003 tax cut package — which McCain at first opposed strongly but now supports extending. Common sense dictates that Cindy McCain will not cash out her Anheuser-Busch stock while her husband is on the campaign trail talking about capital gains, but the appearance of personal gain from McCain’s favored policies still remains. Later today, McCain is scheduled to visit St. Louis — home of Anheuser-Busch — where he plans to talk to local media and attend a fund-raiser. The InBev deal will surely be a topic of interest to reporters there.
Second, and perhaps more important, the enormous windfall is a stark reminder that the McCains are fantastically wealthy. This flies in the face of the image the McCains have been promoting on the stump — that they are an ordinary couple, in touch with the economic concerns of working-class families.
Update 7/16 — Here’s a bit from the Wall Street Journaloutlining Cindy McCain’s financial take from the InBev deal. This story doesn’t seem to be gaining any current traction and I personally think it has nothing to do with McCain’s presidential abilities or hopes, but these sort of facts could easily come back to haunt the campaign. Anytime he tries to spin himself as a “common man” the Obama team only has to pull out these numbers and maybe toss in Cindy’s all-conceived statement that living in Arizona requires a private plane.
From the WSJ link:
UPDATE:Mrs. McCain’s company owns between $2.5 million to $5 million in Anheuser stock, meaning it will earn $800,000 to $1.6 million premium on the pre-deal stock price. Although Senate personal financial disclosure forms only say that Mrs. McCain’s firm owns at least $1 million, a Democratic Party aide points out that it also reports $50,000-$100,000 in dividends in 2007. With $1.25 dividend per share last year, that means the McCains own between 40,000 and 80,000 shares.