The Keating Connection

J. Jennings Moss reports: Remember Charles Keating? Barack Obama's presidential campaign hopes so. But just in case you don't, the campaign today released a 13-minute online documentary about the poster child for the savings and loan crisis of nearly 20 years ago, and of John McCain's involvement in it.

The video, "Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis", was posted on a special minisite, KeatingEconomics.com, shortly after noon EDT.

"The point of the film and the web site is that John McCain still hasn't learned his lesson," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in email to supporters. "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."

The video gives a primer on the failure of Lincoln Savings and Loan, the tactics of its chairman, Charles Keating, and the role played by five U.S. senators: Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, John Glenn, Donald Reigle, and John McCain. All but McCain were Democrats. The Senate Ethics Committee determined that McCain's role was minimal and cleared the charges against him.

"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," Plouffe wrote.

It's surprising that it's taken the Obama campaign this long to slam McCain over his ties to Keating. Last month, Bob Rice laid out in Portfolio.com how Keating might be used against McCain, but he also questioned whether Obama would go after him on the topic.

"Maybe the Democrats ... remind the public of McCain's role in the last debacle, and hang him with three labels at once: hypocritical old insider. But with a Hypermodernist on the other side of the board, I wouldn't bet on it," Rice wrote.

A search on

John McCain's site

brings up six references to a Keating, but it's not that Keating. It's former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, a national co-chairman of the McCain campaign.

Comments

[herbert hoover:]

who cares?

2008 Oct 06 04:44 PM

[Simit Patel:]

Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain have much of an understanding of the Federal Reserve's role in creating this problem, and thus neither will be able to present much of a solution.

2008 Oct 06 06:27 PM

[Duude:]

I agree neither candidate knows much about high finance or the federal reserves's role. I'm really not too worried as I know how cabinet members, staff and other experts do all the heavy lifting anyway. What I am concerned about is ideology, and specifically ideology that runs counter to what I believe is supportive of a healthy capitalist economy. There isn't any doubt that the two candidates have differing ideology to this point. If you believe otherwise, you're only fooling yourself. But don't worry, you're not alone.

2008 Oct 06 09:22 PM

[milkchaser:]

Obama is being criticized for his scandalous ties to Ayers, Wright and Rezko, so he is trying to turn the tables. If there had been anything to the charges against McCain, it would have come up 20 years ago. Obama's ties to Ayers, Wright and Rezko are much closer and more significant.

2008 Oct 07 05:25 PM

[devassocx:]

I am amazed at how, at least so far, our legislators have escaped
the brunt of the public's outrage over all of this.

They were the enablers and the recipients of a ton of political contributions
from the offenders.

2008 Oct 07 09:02 PM