Reply #17: So far the MSM is treating it as kind of folksy charm

[RamboLiberal]

Cindy McCain as Miss Buffalo Chip?
By Kate Phillips

Senator John McCain dipped in and out yesterday at the big bikers’ rally in Sturgis, S.D., to the roar of motorcycles and the admiration of veterans in attendance.

We’re pretty sure then that when he offered up his wife Cindy, who has graced Vogue this year and other magazines as one of the country’s most beautiful women, to compete in the rally’s Miss Buffalo Chip contest, that well, he didn’t entirely get — as an ESPN writer suggests — that the contestants sometimes wind up topless, walk about in thongs (Shocking!) or are otherwise scantily clothed. (Oh! Debauchery!)
Or maybe he did and was just having a little fun.

“I told her with a little luck that she could be the only woman to serve as First Lady and Miss Buffalo Chip,” Mr. McCain told the crowd, as his wife waved to them. (To laughter from the audience, we might add.)
Here’s the YouTube clip where you see the senator and Mrs. McCain (who by the way is laughing), on stage, while he jokes about

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/cindy-mccain-as-miss-buffalo-chip/

Along with making history with his appearance, McCain came close to breaking new ground as he introduced his wife, Cindy McCain (who, Drogin wrote, "wore the equivalent of a nun's habit here: black jeans and a long-sleeved shirt").

McCain, Drogin relates, told his rowdy listeners "that he had encouraged his wife to enter the annual Sturgis beauty contest, one in which nudity is not uncommon. ... 'I told her with a little luck she could be the only lady to serve as first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip,' he said with a broad grin."

Mrs. McCain has been doing yeoman work on the campaign trail. Just this last weekend, she expertly mingled with a NASCAR crowd at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania (and took a short spin in the pace car). Showing excellent judgment, however, she passed on her husband's latest suggestion.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/08/cindy-mccain-as.html