I bet Paris Hilton’s mother is wondering why anyone would support John McCain’s candidacy for the Presidency of the United States. She and her hotel magnate husband gave the maximum contribution permitted under the law to the McCain campaign ($4,600) and he repaid them by exposing their daughter to contempt and ridicule in a nasty TV commercial designed to belittle Barack Obama.

I wouldn’t suggest that Paris Hilton is a role model for the youth of America. Her behavior is often deliberately and defiantly outrageous. And the fact that her calculated trashiness has brought her wealth and fame is a sad commentary on the public’s gullibility. But McCain’s depiction of the Hilton heiress as a mindless bimbo is inexcusable. I hope she sues him.

The ad and ensuing widespread commentary also smeared Britney Spears, the troubled young star whose private tragedy has become a public circus. How low can they go? What has this pitiful young woman done to merit an attack from McCain and his gang?

The McCain “strategists” have even gone so far as to produce a blasphemous television commercial (below, right) comparing Obama (sarcastically, of course) to Moses! Don’t they fear the wrath of God?

So who in their right mind would support the increasingly bizarre McCain campaign?

I know working people are catching on at last. A poll published today shows Barack Obama with a two-to-one lead over McCain among workers making $27,000 a year or less. Conducted by The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University, this poll has a ring of credibility.

Obama’s support comes not only from African-Americans and Hispanics, as you would expect, but also from white voters in this income group, where he leads McCain by 47 percent to 37 percent. So much for the pundits’ refrain about Obama being unable to appeal to white working-class voters. White working-class workers are not crazy. Why would they imagine that McCain – with his beer-baroness wife, eight homes and $520 shoes – gives a damn about them?

The poll included interviews with 1,350 randomly selected workers 18 to 64 years of age. The group, which accounts for nearly a quarter of U.S. adults, views Obama as “the more empathetic candidate and the one who most closely shares their values.”

Whose values does the “war hero” from Arizona share? Not mine. McCain’s “bomb-bomb-bomb Iran” stance makes my blood run cold for one thing. So who are his supporters?

George W. Bush for one. McCain voted in support of the Bush administration more than 90 per cent of the time in the Senate last year and is frequently seen embracing the American President and his policies (photo below).

That’s one vote, anyway. First daughter Jenna as much as said she wouldn’t vote for McCain in a recent TV interview, and I doubt that Laura Bush will follow the party line once she finds herself in the privacy of the voting booth.

Another vote is sure to come from Dick Cheney. He has reportedly made millions during his eight years as vice president, and McCain promises to continue the policies that made people like Cheney filthy rich. Besides, Cheney might be worried about Obama’s moderate stand on gun control. Obama isn’t as likely as McCain to support policies that allow people to shoot their pals in the face from time to time.

How about the single-issue anti-abortion voters? They were misled once; will they be misled twice? They crowded the polls in 2000 and 2004 to get Bush elected because they believed he would ban abortion. Once in office, Bush and his in-crowd laughed at “the evangelicals” and went about the business of plundering America. What would make the anti-abortionists think McCain would be any different? McCain has flip-flopped on abortion and now publicly supports the right-to-life group but – believe me – he doesn’t really care one way or another.

You might think some of those women who supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primaries might turn to McCain. But surely they know he has voted against every issue of importance to women (including breast-cancer research) during his 25 years in Congress. He has also voted against tax breaks for alternative-energy research and a lot of other “green” stuff that many women believe in.

People who make more than $250,000 a year will undoubtedly vote for McCain, and I don’t blame them. Bush gave them a hefty tax cut and Obama makes no secret of his plan to take it back. Hey! Who does this guy Obama think he is? These folks need their $250,000-plus a year to pay their country club dues and the maid’s salary, for crying out loud!

McCain will also get votes from some Americans with oil company stock, the oil company executives with their huge salaries, and the many others who profit from the massive rip-off that’s going on in that area. These folks naturally support the idea of unimpeded offshore oil drilling. The moment drilling restrictions are lifted, their stocks will soar. And they need the money – after all, who can manage on just $12 billion profit per quarter (as Mobile Exxon just reported)?

The insurance companies (and their stockholders) will be on McCain’s side. His “health care” plan would be a bonanza for them, too.

Anyone who profits from America’s tragic involvement in Iraq will likely support McCain. If American troops withdraw from that bloody theater, the “merchants of death” will lose their flood of greenbacks. That includes Halliburton and its myriad subsidiaries (a source of endless and depressing scandals over the past six years).

Also included are zealots who for one reason or another want Americans to shed their blood in a latter-day crusade against Islam – Zionists committed to protecting Israel at any cost, Evangelicals inspired by a misreading of Revelations and the Old Testament, and misinformed muddleheads who still think Iraq had something to do with the World Trade Center attack. These people know McCain would be happy to keep U.S. troops in Iraq for a hundred years, while Obama would bring them home as soon as responsibly possible.

Apart from these people, can you think of anyone who would have cause to vote for McCain? And I’m not talking about people who will vote against Obama because he does not look like all the other presidents pictured on American dollar bills.