By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Keeping track of one's personal assets when one is a very busy elected official can be difficult.
After presidential candidate John McCain couldn't answer a reporter's question this week about how many homes he and his wife own (his staff later proffered an answer), politicians from the Washington area furrowed their brows, sighed and tried to answer the same query posed with the appropriate political timbre.
"Hmmm, let me count. . . . Ummm . . . wait," D.C. shadow senator Paul Strauss pondered. For quite some time.
"One! Yup, that's pretty much it," he said. "It's here, right in D.C. One house."
But he said he sympathizes with those who have a surplus of worldly goods, too numerous to readily tally.
"I have a lot of old T-shirts. It would take me hours to sort through all of them," he said. "And I wouldn't ask my staff to do that. Some of those shirts are older than some of them."
For D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), the surplus is pennies.
"I have a lot of pennies. I couldn't tell you how many pennies I own," the eternally deadpan Mendelson admitted.
But in terms of houses, Mendelson said he owns one. "It's on my campaign finance statement."
There are some, even among the ranks of D.C. Council members, who own more than one home.
"I own two. One in Georgetown and one in Delray Beach, Florida," said Jack Evans (D-Ward 2). "I am, like, the numbers guy. I know how much of everything I have. I know how many socks I have, how many pairs of underwear I have. I know all of it. And if it's missing, I track it down."
He said he remembers hunting down the missing letter "W" from one of his children's alphabet puzzles years ago, when he happened to notice an incomplete lineup.
The Numbers Guy said he cannot imagine that McCain doesn't have a full roster of his homes memorized. "I'm sure Senator McCain knows how many homes he owns. He just didn't want to say."
Ah-haaaaaa.
Therein lies a nuance in political speak. Politicians play down their real estate holdings in almost precise inverse proportion to the degree that real estate agents trump them up, extolling the features most house hunters would shun.
Council member Carol Schwartz (R-At Large) is the closest to a land baroness that D.C. government has, although she takes great care to minimize her portfolio.
"I have three," Schwartz said, describing each home with adjectives any real estate listing agent would loathe: "tiny, old, one-bedroom, old, 45-year-old, little and . . . old."
She has a one-bedroom condo in Florida purchased for $23,000 more than 33 years ago for her mother-in-law; a Cape Cod-style home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., (downtown, not by the ocean, she emphasized); and her apartment in the District.
Politicians cast their living arrangements in the most humble light imaginable:
"A manufactured home with a slight colonial tone to it," said Scott K. York (I), chairman of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, describing his one property, his family's Sterling home.
Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax) lives with his family in a two-bedroom, 1,800-square-foot Fairfax farmhouse. It was assessed at $690,000 this year, according to the county's online assessment database. He does not own any other homes, he said, but disclosure filings show that he owns an office condominium in the county.
The fellow Republican does not begrudge McCain his multiple properties. "Put it this way: What if someone came to you and said: 'I'll make a deal with you. You can be tortured and live in a bamboo box for six years and then later own seven houses.' What would you say?"
Several public officials punted the question of their number of homes to staff members, who played down the properties' features.
Stephanie Lundberg, a spokeswoman for U.S. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md), said he owns two residences: one in his district, the other in the District of Columbia, a "fairly modest condo."
Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot (D) also owns two houses. He has called his 1896 Victorian farmhouse in Takoma Park home for more than 20 years, and four years ago the family purchased a summer beach house on Cape Cod.
"It's mostly a rental property," said Joseph Shapiro, a spokesman for Franchot.
Del. Brian J. Moran (D-Alexandria), who is running for Virginia governor next year, lives in a three-bedroom house near Landmark Mall and owns "a small cabin he used to go to, to fish out in Shenandoah County," said his spokesman, Jesse Ferguson.
D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) did not reply to a request for comment. He appears to own just one house, the Northwest home he bought for $215,000 in 1997.
Then there are public servants.
Such as Peter Nickles, the District's acting attorney general. His home in Great Falls has a stable and a swimming pool, according to public land records. He has an apartment in the District. And he owns part of an island.
Yes, according to the Registry of Deeds office in Maine, Nickles owns one-sixth of Mouse Island, a little rock along the gunkholing paradise that is Maine's coastline.
On the other end of the spectrum are those who own nothing. And proudly admit they live in public housing.
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), the former mayor of Baltimore, and his wife, Catherine Curran O'Malley, a Maryland district court judge, put their four-bedroom Tudor in northeast Baltimore on the market last spring, shortly after they moved into the governor's mansion in Annapolis.
For O'Malley spokesman Shaun Adamec, this was a slam-dunk.
"He and his family feel fortunate to have this opportunity to spend time in Government House," Adamec said. "And that's where they are for the time being."
Staff writers Ovetta Wiggins, John Wagner and Sandhya Somashekhar and staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
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