Every one of the candidates running for President and Vice President is a multi-millionaire. But some of them are more well off (and more ostentatious) than the others. For all the criticism he takes, George W. Bush is the poor kid on the block. The Weekly Standard takes a look at the staggering differences between the candidates of today and candidates of the past.

In most cases, the well-to-do in American politics have been like the Kennedys, Bushes, and Roosevelts, people who lived in great comfort but not ostentation, with, say, a town house, a (family) place in the country, small pleasure boats, and of course live-in help. When he ran for president, Franklin D. Roosevelt had a flat in New York and the family seat in Hyde Park and he lived in the governor's mansion in Albany. Theodore Roosevelt had a house in Washington (where he served as McKinley's vice president), and his ungainly Sagamore Hill mansion on Long Island. When John Kennedy ran, he had a nice but unostentatious town house in Georgetown, and a nice but unremarkable house on Cape Cod. (To be fair, he also had access to his father's Palm Beach oceanside mansion, and the family's several apartments in New York.) When George W. Bush ran for president, he lived in the governor's mansion in Austin, and his one home was his ranch.

Kerry by contrast is master and commander of no fewer than five lavish mansions, all large, and all on the priciest real estate, where property values boggle the mind: There is the $3.7 million mansion in Fox Chapel, Pa., on a 90-acre estate with a pool and a carriage house; the $6.9 million town house on Beacon Hill back in Boston; the $9.1 million waterfront house on Nantucket Island; and a $5 million ski chalet in Ketchum, Idaho, built from a 15th-century barn discovered in England that was then taken apart, shipped to America, and reassembled stone by stone. When they want to live simply, the Heinz Kerrys make do with a 23-room town house in Georgetown, almost three times the size of the one that the Kennedys lived in, and worth a mere $4.7 million. To go back and forth between all of these places, the Kerrys have the deluxe model of the Gulfstream V private jet, which retails for about $35 million.

No matter how despicable you consider their professions (a trial lawyer and oil tycoon), you would have a tough time arguing that Edwards and Cheney didn't work for their money. On the other hand, both Kerry and Bush have more or less lucked into money. Bush earned his money through family connections, while Kerry has a gift for wooing rich women. There's nothing altogether wrong with either of those prospects, but when it comes to the politics of envy (that the Dems are so good at) they don't really have much to talk about.