Over at hotair, they're talking about this connection, but also bringing up John Clenn, another member of the Keating 5, who is out stumping for Obama:

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/06/obamas-ke...

Where does this nonsense stop? This garbage was brought up in the primaries and McCain decides to rehash it. And just why does Obama feel he needs to join him in the garbage can? He said McCain was trying to distract us, but then he himself joins in the distraction. So what is he now going to say about John Glenn? Kinda makes me wonder how the economy and all of those other issues are doing today.

I'm pretty sure this is the Obama camp showing that they intend to fight back instead of sitting back and taking it like Gore and Kerry. Furthermore, the public really does need to know about this connection. It exemplifies the fact that McCain will do whatever is in his best interest.

Yes, the S&L industry collapse DID hurt a lot of people, but McCain has never been shown to have profited from it, nor did Keating benefit because of anything McCain did for him. This has all been pretty well documented. He and his wife have had ties to Keating, but I think there is a similar figure, or ten, behind virtually every member of Congress, no matter what the party affiliation. If having an association is a justifiable reason to castigate someone, then don't we have to automatically castigate Obama for his associations, no matter how insubstantial they have been? Obama does not stand to benefit from trying to paint McCain as corrupt unless he has some new smoking gun that had heretofore been hidden.

As for how the Obama campaign needs to respond, clearly they need to remain aggressive. The question is being smart about it, framing the issues in a way that compliments the perception of Obama and his change message. This is not the way.

Unless some unforseen event intervenes to change my mind, I will still be voting for Obama next month. That said, I'm very disappointed that he is joining this war of smears. Not just because it's politics as usual or because it's generally distasteful or because it distracts from dialogue on issues of actual importance. No, it's disappointing because of the disingenuous nature of it. McCain's ties to Keating have been revealed to be entirely benign; he's never been shown to profit from his associations and as far as anyone has been able to tell, no one was harmed because of them. Obama's campaign knows all this, yet it's pressing ahead anyway.

This kind of cynical campaign is more likely to backfire than succeed, because Obama is proving himself to be the same kind of political animal as the man he's claiming is “politics as usual”. Voters will be invited to say, “If I'm not supposed to care about Obama's relationship with Ayres, no matter how innocent, why should I care about McCain's relationship with Keating? Maybe I should look closer at both…”. There's little chance this closer scrutiny helps Obama but a great chance it hurts him. His lead has been build mainly based on the public's economic fears. Anything that distracts them from that is a loss for Obama.

A smarter rebuke for Obama, if he really wanted to use the Keating scandal or guilt by association would be to find relationships McCain has had over the years with controversial figures, maybe just a random meeting, maybe an exchange of letters, whatever. Then have an ominous voiceover reference all of these perfectly innocent meetings, “McCain once met with Noriega” or whatever, but then the punchline is to say, “You know what, all of these meetings were perfectly innocent, so don't worry about them. The McCain campaign wants you to believe Obama meeting {insert name here} was sinister, but you know better. Don't let cynical attacks distract you from the real issues that face your family…”

Obama as the cool, smartass Bronx Bunny? Works for me.

Of course, we have already seen McCain's Bailout plan stunt blowing up in his face a la Yosemite Sam. Somehow, Yosemite Sam's hot-headed character is reflective of McCain.

I imagine that makes Senator Obama the invariably cool, unflappable Bugs. Appropriate somehow.

Joe, instead of the endless posts about future trivia question answer Palin or a candidate who makes Bob Dole look competent, why not have a day where all of the posts reconciling Senator Obama's political rhetoric and policy positions with political reality. How will government reform, healthcare reform, energy regulation, or immigration look after the Demcrats in Congress pass the legislation.