http://keatingeconomics.com/
About fucking time. I LOVE it.
Wonder how much stuff the Obama campaign is doing that has John Kerry saying "why the fuck didn't I do that"
And they did it totally under the radar.
What's really amusing/interesting about this is how the McCain camp has been crowing for months about how "Obama has brought this on himself" and the like, every time they go negative.
Seems like this is a just response to the attacks McCain has started.
We'll see, I'm worried about how the media narrative will be.
I'd been wondering if/when they'd bring up Keating.
As long as they don't ignore it, it's good news.Originally Posted by theblackw0lf
Hot damn, I just gave more to the Obama campaign yesterday, but stuff like this makes me want to give more!
Heh, McCain is so fucked. If only fucking Intrade would accept my credit card...
It's a bit sad it has to come to this, but if "Sarahcuda" can go around saying that Obama "pals around" with terrorists, then the McCain campaign has to take what it dishes out.
Excellent. Now show me an ad bashing McCain for voting no on Jim Webb's GI bill because being good to the troops is bad for the military, and I'll be happy.
So this is directly from the Obama campaign? I see the 'donate now' link, but where on that page does it indicate this is from Obama's campaign.
If that's the case, I wish they wouldn't bother. I suspect anyone who's wonky enough to care about McCain's Keating 5 history already knows about it. Similarly, I don't expect the McCain campaign's stupid Ayers stuff is going to get any traction. It's going to be too esoteric to the average undecided -- Weather Underground? Huh? -- and it's just going to make McCain and Palin look as desperate and irrelevant as they are.
-Tom
Well, there's this at the bottom of the page:
Scroll to the bottom - it says in a box in the middle "Paid for by Obama for America."
I think this will have much more impact than the Ayers thing. For one thing, people in their 20's, 30's, and even 40's won't know what the hell the Weather Underground was. I didn't until I looked it up. But a hell of a lot of people know what the S&L scandal was about, and intimate involvement a relatively recent economic scandal being raised during a current one is going to influence the decisions of at least a few independents who still think that McCain's long history in the Senate is going to allow him to better solve this crisis.
Right at the bottom: "Paid for by Obama for America".
I think the biggest effect of this will be to do something John Kerry and Al Gore seemed to struggle with: firing up the hardcore Democrats. Intellectually I think most of us understand that a presidential candidate--be he Republican or Democrat--has to veer to the middle in the September-October campaign phase, and while the GOP faithful seem to get it, on the Left you have whiny jackholes making the facile and lack-witted internet forum chestnut canard: "there's no real difference between these guys" and professing not to care. This counterpunching shows an ability to throw elbows and go on the attack in a way that Clinton did in '92, and that fires up non-racist Democrats in a big way.
Ayers has already been brought up to me as a reason not to support Obama. I said, "Well he was 8 years old when that guy was active." and that was pretty much the end of the conversation.
The Obama campaign sent out an email to donors advertising it tonight. It's definitely official.
I don't. It's wrong on the facts. McCain was absolved of blame in the Keating scandal and only tangentially related to the S&L mess (in that he was a Reagan Republican who supported deregulation, not taking any active role).
Obama's campaign used to be better than this. I'm sad to see them start to descend to McCain's level. Especially when they don't *need* to. The McCain campaign is a drunken trainwreck, the latest assaults involving William Ayers are just silly and also retreads from the primaries, and Obama is widely seen as the better candidate on the economy *and* on foreign policy.
I know some Democrats want to be as smashmouth on offense as Republicans, but it's a bad idea, and in general bad for the country. Part of the reason why I support Obama so strongly is that up until now he has repudiated garbage politics like this.
Ah, I couldn't see that little tag in Firefox, which messes the page up so that those news headlines cover the "paid for" logo.
Yeah, I'm disappointed to see Obama go this low when he clearly doesn't need to. It's a tactical error. The base is plenty fired up. We don't need this sort of stuff, which is just going to help excuse McCain's "palling around with terrorists" crap. To riff on E5's subject header: some of us didn't want to play dirty.
-Tom
McCain was flying around in Keating's airplane. McCain's wife was a business partner in some investments with Keating. That's a lot, lot more of a connection than the Obama/Ayers connection. McCain's meeting with regulators on Keating's behalf might not have been illegal, but it is a stain on McCain's mavericky image. McCain/Palin opened this up with Palin's speeches connecting Obama to Ayers. Connecting McCain to Keating is every bit as appropriate and far more relevant given the current financial crisis.
Sure I wish neither campaign was grubbing around in the dirt, but if McCain/Palin is going to grub, I fully support Obama/Biden bringing this up.
I really don't get how this is "playing dirty". It's entirely factual. McCain was investigated by the sweetheart Senate Ethics Committee and still got tagged with "poor judgement". He was totally in bed with Keating and only stopped going to bat for the guy when criminal charges were forthcoming.
And it all looks remarkably like what is happening right now in the economy, with McCain no different in his pushes for deregulation, nor his close relationships with the beneficiaries of the mess. It's history, and Obama is reminding you and letting you decide whether or not you think you'll be doomed to repeat it.
On the other hand, we could spend the next couple of weeks talking about some guy who happens to be politically active in the same city as Obama. Because explosions are a hell of a lot more exciting than hauling your family and your babysitter on some white collar criminal's private jet to the Bahamas for free. Or, free until you see he's going to be indicted, whereupon you suddenly pitch in for nine round trips worth of jet fuel.
Maybe you should wait until you watch the documentary before making any judgments. From what I've seen, they're not attacking McCain for being unethical. They're saying that McCain's desire for deregulation, the type of deregulation which they believe helped create the recent financial crises, can also be seen in his role in the Keating scandal. I don't see how that's mudslinging. It's completely relevant to the current financial crises.
Now whether it's smart politically is another story.
Oh, come on. You're being silly. If it's a "clean" issue, it would have been brought up before McCain rolled out the "palling around with terrorists" canard. This is clearly a reaction to the McCain campaign sinking to a new low.
If you think it's a valid criticism, that's fine. But don't pretend this isn't a tactical shift for the Obama campaign.
Anyway, I'll be curious to see what they put together for that documentary and how hard they hit the issue. Next to Obama rolling over on the FISA stuff, this is pretty disappointing to me. Not that I'm taking down my Obama yard sign or anything, but I really think Obama is in the position of not having to do this.
-Tom
It does seem surprising -- why change anything when you're leading? "Palling around with terrorists" might have been the Drudge superstory for a couple of days, but I doubt it would have lasted long in the regular news cycle.
While the incoming Ayers barrage may be the main driver, over the last week I've seen Keating starting to come surface here and there. Not from any official campaign reps but it was building a bit. If it was coming up anyway, the Obama campaign may have wanted to get control of it and structure the message in a particular way.
But yeah, overall, I think I'd have preferred Obama to stay out of it.
Last edited by Quaro; 10-06-2008 at 12:48 AM.
It's just not worth the risk. Kerry tried to ignore the Swift Boat ads in the hopes it would just go away, and it costs him his lead in the polls. The election is still four weeks away which is more than enough for McCain to knock Obama out of the lead, if Obama handles things badly. I think this is an appropriate and measured response.
I kind of hope it isn't brought up in direct opposition to the Ayers thing. It puts them on the same level, while they are totally not.
I guess I'm just a bit baffled as to how McCain campaigning for deregulation of a major bank which led to a huge financial scandal, which also has parallels to the current economic crises, isn't relevant and shouldn't be brought up.
The Obama campaign believes that it's excessive deregulation of the banking industy that's helped create the current financial crisis. Yet McCain's role in the deregulation of Lincoln Savings and Loan isn't something that voters should be aware of?
Now I question whether it's smart politically. But I don't see how it's "dirty".
He's leading but his lead is pretty soft. Those numbers could change with any passing breeze...and then McCain put "Obama" and "terrorist" in the same sentence. Those are pretty much the definition of fighting words in 2008.
I think assuming that he could just coast to victory on a few point lead in early October would be pretty reckless.
If a guy sends a kick at your nuts and you jam his shin, you're not playing dirty.
It's Obama's facts vs. McCain's innuendo. Obama is not conspiring with Ayers to blow up a federal building, nor is he even friends with the guy. However, McCain did push for regulators to help out his friend and business associate Keating. That is a fact.
The McCain campaign has said they're going to lead an all-out assault on Obama's character. Ayers is just part of it. Rezko will be brought up again (which I think has the potential for more damage than Ayers). And I'm sure the GOP will make up a bunch of shit hoping some of it sticks.
Timing is everything, Mr. Wolf. If Obama considered it a legitimate campaign issue, he would have brought it up before now. But you're hearing it now as a reaction to McCain's tactics.
I'm not saying it's untrue, I'm not saying it's unfair, and I'm not even saying it won't work. I'm just saying I wish Obama had kept on the high road.
In other words, "he started it, so it's not dirty!". Gotcha. *wink*
Good lord, what gives you that impression? The respective bases are pretty much solidified, and the closer we get to the election, the harder it is to overcome the momentum in Obama's favor, particularly with McCain's angry old man antics and Palin's folksiness alienating the people they were supposed to win over. Undecideds are breaking pretty decisively for Obama. The national polls and the electoral college count are both encouraging. I think it's anything but a "soft lead".
-Tom
Here's how you get him.
If the Obama campaign were really playing dirty, they'd be going after McCain's connections to G Gordon Liddy.
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