Posted on 10/05/2008 7:37:18 PM PDT by Chet 99
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Monday will launch a multimedia campaign to draw attention to the involvement of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the “Keating Five” savings-and-loan scandal of 1989-91, which blemished McCain’s public image and set him on his course as a self-styled reformer.
Pushing back against what it calls “guilt-by-association” tactics by McCain, the Obama campaign is e-mailing millions of supporters a link to a website, KeatingEconomics.com, that will have a 13-minute documentary on the scandal beginning at noon Eastern time on Monday. The overnight e-mails urge recipients to pass the link on to friends.
The Obama campaign, including its surrogates appearing on radio and television, will argue that the deregulatory fervor that caused massive, cascading savings-and-loan collapses in the last ‘80s was pursued by McCain throughout his career, and helped cause the current credit crisis.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
McCain calls the Keating scandal “my asterisk.”
“The appearance of it was wrong,” McCain said. “It’s a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do.”
These are McCain’s words, not mine. And, it’s not like I’m asking him to admit to anything that he hasn’t already admitted to. I’m just suggesting he could turn an Obama attack, into his advantage.
Well, maybe the tactic McCain should use would be to connect the Democrats in the Keating S&L scandal to the Democrats and the current economic crisis. Take the issue and make it his own.
A week spent discussing Ayers and Charles Keating is better than a week discussing economic upheaval.
Agreed. And I would note that if Obama was really as far ahead as these polls suggest, there would be no reason to fight back. He could remain cool and aloof and dismissive.
To see what the polls really look like, you have to derive it from the actions of the campaigns. Obama is NOT acting like he has a 8 point lead.
“McCain calls the Keating scandal “my asterisk.””
Obama has a closet full of cockroach “asterisks”.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,331651,00.html
ROBERT BENNETT, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, Senator McCain did not want a repeat of what occurred years ago in South Carolina, namely a real smear campaign, and asked me to assist them, and I have been assisting him. And this — I’m just — I think what the New York Times did here was shameless, just shameless. As you pointed out in the lead, it’s almost entirely unsourced.
You know, I’m in a pretty unique position to talk about John McCain. First, I should tell your listeners, you know, I’m a registered Democrat, so I’m not on his side of a lot of issues. But I investigated John McCain for a year and a half, at least, when I was special counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee in the Keating Five, which, by the way, this New York Times article goes back to and discusses, goes back years and years.
And if there is one thing I am absolutely confident of, it is John McCain is an honest and honest man. I recommended to the Senate Ethics Committee that he be cut out of the case, that there was no evidence against him, and I think for the New York Times to dig this up just shows that Senator McCain’s public statement about this is correct. It’s a smear job. I’m sorry.
Put down the bong and start reading the poll internals.
That, and compare to the Kerry-Bush polls from last time.
Kerry won in a landslide, just like the polls said, remember?
Cheers!
Will the documentary only focus on a proven-innocent McCain or will it actually highlight the fact that three DEMOCRATS were found guilty while John Glenn and McCain were exonerated?
Could somehow with the know how gather the facts on when this site was created and who created it? Or at least give me some insight on how to find such info.
Update: If you go to youtube you will see the same message of a release time of 12PM EST. What you will also see is the youtube link has been placed by a "BarackObamadotcom" and allows you to contribute directly to the Obama campaign. This "BarackObamadotcom" has posted 1458 videos so the question is who is this "BarackObamadotcom" and what ties/possible ties do they have to the Obama campaign?
The same Annenberg founded by Ayers? Why is the media using this source to check facts? It's insane.
Not to mention 4 of the Keating Five were Democrats.
I thought McCain was cleared in Keating.
Amen. From your keyboard to God's eyes!
McCain can hit back hard on this.
He went to the regulators.
McCain was the sacrificial republican to be “bipartisan”
Obama is guilty as sin with ayers and acorn voter fraud.
Obama IS THE PROBLEM.
Obama is jimmy carter.
I would welcome this. McCain was cleared and obama’s pals are far far worse.
Bring it on!
And hit back with the Odinga You-Tube links.
That unconvenient Truth needs to be posted on McCain's site too. A lot of young voters check Factcheck.org for their "facts." Our young voters need to expose this to their friends.
Didn’t notice this before my last post - the website and documentary are “Paid For By Barack Obama For America”
This is being sent out to the party - it reads as follows:
Over the weekend, John McCain’s top adviser announced their plan to stop engaging in a debate over the economy and “turn the page” to more direct, personal attacks on Barack Obama.
In the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, they want to change the subject from the central question of this election. Perhaps because the policies McCain supported these past eight years and wants to continue are pretty hard to defend.
But it’s not just McCain’s role in the current crisis that they’re avoiding. The backward economic philosophy and culture of corruption that helped create the current crisis are looking more and more like the other major financial crisis of our time.
During the savings and loan crisis of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, McCain’s political favors and aggressive support for deregulation put him at the center of the fall of Lincoln Savings and Loan, one of the largest in the country. More than 23,000 investors lost their savings. Overall, the savings and loan crisis required the federal government to bail out the savings of hundreds of thousands of families and ultimately cost American taxpayers $124 billion.
Sound familiar?
In that crisis, John McCain and his political patron, Charles Keating, played central roles that ultimately landed Keating in jail for fraud and McCain in front of the Senate Ethics Committee. The McCain campaign has tried to avoid talking about the scandal, but with so many parallels to the current crisis, McCain’s Keating history is relevant and voters deserve to know the facts — and see for themselves the pattern of poor judgment by John McCain.
So at noon Eastern on Monday, October 6th, we’re releasing a 13-minute documentary about the scandal called “Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis” — it will be available at KeatingEconomics.com, along with background information that every voter should know.
Watch a preview right now and share it with your friends.
The point of the film and the web site is that John McCain still hasn’t learned his lesson.
And this time, McCain’s bankrupt economic philosophy has put our economy at the brink of collapse and put millions of Americans at risk of losing their homes.
Watch the video to see why John McCain’s failed philosophy and poor judgment is a recipe for deepening the crisis:
http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
It’s no wonder John McCain would rather spend the last month of this election smearing Barack’s character instead of talking about the top priority issue for voters.
But if we work together, we can make sure the focus stays on the economy — and how to fix it.
Please forward this email to everyone you know.
Thanks,
David
David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America
P.S. — The documentary will be live at noon Eastern at www.KeatingEconomics.com.
Look, his loyalists don't give a Rats behind who Obama associated with to get where he is! We're wasting precious time going down that path. It didn't work with Clinton!
McCain is ignoring what Obama is promising Blue Collar America who happen to BELIEVE they're getting everything that's coming out of the Messiah's stupid mouth.
McCain doesn't realize the AVERAGE Democrat is under the impression he is going to get us out of IRAQ and we will "study war no more". LOL!
Obama mentions Afghanistan like it's going to be a day at the beach. His disciples can't absorb we are STILL going to have to fight, only in another place.
Obama is promising them financial windfalls and gov't entitlement programs that we cannot AFFORD and he can't possible produce. This is gigantic.
We need to hold Obama's feet to the fire and let him explain how he plans on being Santa Claus to everyone.
Last, we desperately need to explain the "bail out" and bad loans to minorities like never before. Blue Collar America isn't focused on Wall Street, only how an Obama Presidency is going to affect them.
Blue Collar America is under the impression it's only the Wall Street Investors who are going to lose their financial future security. Scare the Beejesus out of them with the truth that their welfare benefits, social security, medicare, etc., are all in danger.
I'm ranting, I apologize. sw
True Americans won't be interested in visiting that site or any of the other anti-American, propaganda sites connected to the Muslim. Liberals probably won't be out of bed by noon in the east. Thats 9am on the west coast and today ain't welfare day, so you can forget about them getting up.
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