John McCain drew raucous cheers at a biker convention when he joked about having his wife, Cindy, enter a beauty pageant featuring half-naked women and sexual high jinks.
The GOP presidential hopeful made the joke about the Miss Buffalo Chip pageant, with Cindy by his side onstage, as he appeared Monday at the 68th annual Sturgis Rally. The massive bikerthon is held at the Buffalo Chip campground in Sturgis, SD.
“I encouraged Cindy to compete,” McCain said as the leather-wearing crowd roared. “I told her with a little luck, she could be the only woman ever to serve as first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.”
The beauty contest is held every night, according to reports. An ESPN columnist described it as “essentially a topless beauty pageant. And occasionally bottomless, too.”
Some women’s-advocacy groups took issue with the quip.
“Maybe he figures that the frat-boy routine worked for George Bush, so he’s trying to same thing, but I’m not sure that this is going to play very well with the audience that he’s courting,” said National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy.
At the rally, McCain mocked Barack Obama‘s trip to Germany saying, “Not long ago, a couple of hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent. I’ll take the roar of 50,000 Harleys any day.”
Video clips of his beauty-pageant line started circulating broadly on the Internet yesterday.
It wasn’t clear if McCain knew of the pageant’s raunchiness. Aides didn’t respond to requests for comment.
McCain has been trying to woo a group of women who were loyal to Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primaries.
A new AP poll out yesterday showed Obama ahead of McCain by a 47 percent to 41 percent margin, due in large part to strong support among women.
The candidates continued hammering each other on energy policies, with McCain visiting a nuclear power-plant in Michigan to tout his support for atomic energy.
Obama, on the stump in Ohio, lashed back at Republicans for mocking his suggestion that inflating tires helps with gas mileage.
“They’re making fun of a step that every expert says would reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent,” he said. “It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant.
“You know, they think it is funny that they are making fun of something that is actually true . . . Instead of running ads about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, they should go talk to some energy experts and actually make a difference.”
Meanwhile, Clinton will be campaigning for Obama Aug. 21 in Las Vegas and Florida.
Also yesterday, officials at the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper questioned why a black reporter covering a McCain rally was picked out by security and ordered to leave a backstage area.