I was a mere teen when this Keating Five scandal broke, but was somewhat aware of it only because a senator from my state (Riegle) was involved, and it was in all the papers.
I know John McCain was one of the five, and upon some basic reading-up on the story, I see that he was cleared of all charges, but was criticized by the Senate Ethics Committee for “poor judgement.”
Will this and should this be brought up in this campaign? If so, will the Democrats strike with it first, or do you think they’re sitting on it as a counter to a potential right-wing attack on Obama or Biden? Would this be considered mud-slinging to bring it up? Would it be considered mud-slinging to be used as a counter to an attack by the McCain campaign?
Part of me wishes that someone (Biden, an independent group) would just hammer the hell out of McCain right out of the gate with this to the point that there’s no way he can escape being identified with this scandal. I think many people have either forgotten he was one of the Keating Five, or were just too young to even know about it. My opinion is that it wouldn’t be slinging mud to bring it up, because the American public needs to be fully aware of their presidential candidates’ political careers, good and bad. And this was a bad, bad lapse of judgement on the part of John McCain.
Here are some facts of the case as I understand them: In 1987 McCain met with Charles Keating, whose corrupt management of the Lincoln Savings and Loan spurred a federal investigation, which Keating was trying to circumvent through his connections in the Senate; McCain took campaign money from him over the course of five years, took trips with him, and McCain, his wife and father-in-law invested heavily in a Keating venture; and in the 2002 book ‘Worth the Fighting For,’ McCain wrote that his involvement with Keating was the “worst mistake of my life.” (I thought the worst mistake of his life was the failure of his first marriage?)
Thoughts? Opinions? I’m starting this thread as both an Obama supporter who wishes to discuss possible campaign strategy, as well as someone who wants to genuinely learn more about this subject-- from right, left and middle.
The average voter has the attention span of a ferret. As far as Joe Sixpack is concerned, the Keating Five was probably a band Michael J Fox’s character formed on Family Ties. I’d be amazed if it got any traction; I’d be even more amazed if the Dems even try to go there.
I agree, but should the fact that a presidential candidate was involved in a major banking scandal be brought *back * to light?
Out of simple curiosity, why would you be amazed? This seems to my ears like something that would be 1)A political campaign goldmine for the Dems, and 2)A good reminder that John McCain had become buddied up to the corrupt side of a Savings and Loan scandal, a scandal that some say stifled new housing construction and moved us into the early-90s recession.
I think McCain brings it into play himself everytime he tries to make insinuations about Obama and Rezko. Obama has never had to be “cleared” of anything or warned about poor judgement. If McCain wants to play this “associations” game with Obama, Obama should bring up not only the Keating 5, but dig around for every scummy lobbyist and sleazeball political connection John McCain has ever rubbed dicks with. Obama should also prominently display that picture of McCain with his face lovingly nestled in the bosom of History’s Dumbest Monster at every opportunity.
The fact is, the Senate Ethics Committee said that John McCain had not crossed any legal boundaries, and in fact they recommended McCain should have been dropped from the ‘Keating 5’, along with John Glenn, who was also cleared of any wrongdoing. The problem with that was that the Democrats badly wanted to paint this as a bipartisan scandal rather than a scandal against Democrats, so they refused to drop John McCain, the sole Republican. In retaliation, the Republicans refused to drop John Glenn.
Had they dropped him as the special prosecutor suggested, it would have been ‘The Keating Three’, and McCain’s and Glenn’s names would never have been associated with it.
Basically what happened is that McCain and Glenn were doing what all Washington politicians do - they were schmoozing with high powered lobbyists and letting them spend money on them. They just happened to pick a lobbyist who was actually bribing other politicians and got caught up in the investigation. But McCain and Glenn offered no quid pro quos and did not take money from Keating. When Keating asked McCain to intervene with regulators on his behalf, McCain refused. Later, when he was told by regulators that Keating’s S&L was under federal investigation, McCain dropped all ties with him - the only one of the five Senators to do so.
McCain and Glenn both ran for re-election after this all happened, and both were re-elected. If anything, the two were treated unjustly - their reputations sullied because of partisan politics.
If you ask me, the Keating 5 scandal actually speaks quite well of McCain. Sure, he accepted perks from lobbyists, which all Senators do, but when he was asked to intervene with regulators he refused, and as soon as he found out the guy was shady he broke off all ties with him. One of the things that came out in the investigation was that Keating was pissed at McCain because McCain refused to compromise for him.
And what wrongdoing has Obama ever even been accused of in his dealings with Rezko? I ask because McCain is making insinuations about “shady land deals,” when no such deals exist and he knows it. If McCain wants to play that game, it’s only fair to rub his nose in Keating. Whatever he did, it’s more than what he’s accusing Obama of doing.
Nothing - that’s the whole point. It’s a way to say “Obama is corrupt, making sweetheart deals with known criminals” or “Obama is a racist terrorist who is the ideological soulmate of men who have blown up buildings” without actually SAYING so. They’re letting those who are ideologically aligned make their own connections.
But the key point is that when Keating tried to cash in on that and get McCain to actually compromise his ethics and do his bidding, McCain told him to get stuffed.
Absolutely the Keating Five scandal should be brought up. McCain is, with 100% certainty, going to invoke Rezko, Wright, Ayers, etc in his quest to slime Obama. There’s no reason to not give it right back.
Whether or not McCain was a major player or convicted of crimes or whatever isn’t important to an ad. Witness McCain’s recent Rezko ad which implies that Obama wrote letters for Rezko in return for Rezko’s involvement in the property purchase (when in reality, Obama wrote an unsolicited letter about nine years prior to buying his home).
Across America, citizens are facing tough times. Rising fuel prices, foreclosures, banking institutions threatened by a hard economy. When John McCain says that the fundamentals of our economy are strong, you may be wondering how connected he is. After all, this is the same John McCain who was involved in one of the nation’s largest savings and loan scandals; one for which the Senate Ethics Committee ruled that McCain showed “Poor judgement”. Nor did it stop John McCain from accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from convicted felon Charles Keating…"
Sure, there’s points to be made that there were Democrats involved in the scandal, McCain received one of the lightest “punishments” and that the donations didn’t result from the Keating Five scandal and were well before his convictions. So what? It’s not as thought McCain is going to run a five minute counter-ad detailing the entire scandal to home viewers.
So if you were influencing the Obama campaign,would you attack first with your ad, taking a risk that you’ll be hit with the “mud-slinging” label? Or should you hold this back until the McCain campaign (or “independent” supporter groups) make the first big attack?
I’d say that McCain already hit first with his intentionally misleading Rezko ad. But I’d probably sit on the Keating issue until closer to Election Day. No reason to give people months to get used to the idea that McCain was dragged before the Senate Ethics Committee because of his “poor judgement” in dealing with convicted felons
