Preemptive attacks on McCain. When he was Obama's age, he was part of the Keating Five.

[TexasObserver]

There are many sources. I'll use Wikipedia (with its problems) because it's a starting point and is well known.

McCain was part of a sleazy group whose help to sleazy interests cost the US goverment billions and stole the retirements of many, many Americans.

So when McCain says "when I was a young man," or "when I was Obama's age," remind him that he was a sell out who cost the US billions with his sleazy deals.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Keating Five
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Keating Five (or Keating Five Scandal) refers to a Congressional scandal related to the collapse of most of the Savings and Loan institutions in the United States in the late 1980s.

Following the deregulation of the banking industry in the 1980s, savings and loan associations (also known as thrifts) were given the flexibility to invest their depositors' funds in commercial real estate. (Previously, they had been restricted to investing in residential real estate.) Many savings and loan associations began making risky investments. As a result, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the federal agency that regulates the industry, tried to clamp down on the trend. In so doing, however, the FHLBB clashed with the Reagan administration, whose policy was deregulation of many industries, including the thrift industry. The administration declined to submit budgets to Congress that would request more funding for the FHLBB's regulatory efforts.

In 1989, the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association of Irvine, Calif., collapsed. Lincoln's chairman, Charles H. Keating Jr., was faulted for the thrift's failure. Keating, however, told the House Banking Committee that the FHLBB and its former chief Edwin J. Gray were pursuing a vendetta against him. Gray testified that several U.S. senators had approached him and requested that he ease off on the Lincoln investigation. It came out that these senators had been beneficiaries of $1.3 million (collective total) in campaign contributions from Keating.

This allegation set off a series of investigations by the California government, the United States Department of Justice, and the Senate Ethics Committee. The ethics committee's investigation focused on five senators: Alan Cranston (D-CA); Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ); John Glenn (D-OH); John McCain (R-AZ); and Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (D-MI), who became known as the Keating Five.

[MADem]

1. He wiggled out of that, though--and gave a very dramatic speech too

It gave him some of his Straight Talk cachet.

You focus on that, and the response will be "Asked and Answered. Move along. Old News. Is That All You've Got?" And then, the GOP will fling a steaming load of Swift Boat-ish dogshit at the Dem nominee.

[leveymg]

2. The S&L scandal was made to go away because it involved a lot of powerful people, including this guy

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE0DE153DF931A35752C1A965958260
U.S. Investigating Clinton's Links to Arkansas S.& L.
By JEFF GERTH WITH STEPHEN ENGELBERG,
Published: November 2, 1993

Federal investigators are raising questions about ties between President Clinton and an Arkansas businessman, a political patron of Mr. Clinton in the 1980's whose failed savings and loan is now under investigation.

Government officials and lawyers familiar with the case said the President was neither the subject nor a target of the investigation, which is still in its early stages.

But the inquiry focuses on questionable financial dealings involving the savings and loan, Madison Guaranty, from which Mr. Clinton benefited both personally and politically. The savings and loan's owner, James McDougal, was one of Mr. Clinton's closest associates in Arkansas and was, at various times, his business partner, political fund-raiser, family banker and senior aide when Mr. Clinton was Governor of Arkansas. Advantageous Relationship

Mr. Clinton's banking commissioner advised him in 1983 that Mr. McDougal was engaged in questionable banking practices. But the two men nevertheless maintained a business and political relationship throughout the 1980's that helped both men. When Mr. Clinton needed someone to raise $35,000 to retire debts from his 1984 re-election campaign, he turned to Mr. McDougal.

Mr. McDougal denies any wrongdoing. His lawyer, Sam Heuer, said his client was under investigation by the United States Attorney in Little Rock, Ark. Last month the Federal agency that disposes of failed savings and loans, the Resolution Trust Corporation, asked the United States Attorney in Little Rock to examine several possible violations of law in the operations of the savings and loan, including transactions that may have helped Mr. Clinton pay his campaign debts.

According to Federal officials, court documents and lawyers familiar with the case, the two Federal agencies have been trying to find out whether more than $250,000 in business loans was improperly diverted from Madison in April 1985 to several sources, including Governor Clinton's re-election campaign.

The officials said the campaign received $12,000 in cashier's checks from Madison, some of which appeared to have been paid for by the business loans. The former Clinton aide who deposited the money said neither she nor Mr. Clinton was aware of any irregularities about its source.

Investigators have asked prosecutors to see whether the campaign contributions were linked to efforts by Madison to win state approval for an unusual plan to raise new capital by issuing stock, the officials said.

Finally, prosecutors are studying a $300,000 loan from a federally sponsored lending company to Mr. McDougal's wife, Susan. The man who made the loan, David Hale, was indicted in September on unrelated charges.

In an effort to win leniency from prosecutors on the eve of his indictment, Mr. Hale offered prosecutors information about Mr. Clinton and other Arkansas politicians, but was unable to reach a plea agreement. Mr. Hale asserted in interviews with reporters that Mr. Clinton had personally pressed him to make the $300,000 loan.

SNIP

[TexasObserver]

4. For obvious reasons, I prefer to focus on the McCain angle.

I know all the dirt on the Clintons, which is one reason I don't talk about those things, but I do know they are reasons Hillary can't be our standard bearer in November. We can't claim the high ground and fight all those nefarious connections, before, during, and after Bill was president.

Frankly, I am most troubled by the conduct since he got out of the presidency.

By nominating Obama, we give ourselves a race we can win on the issue of dirty connections. Whatever they have on Obama, it's nothing compared to McCain and Clinton's problems.

[leveymg]

5. Me, too. But, first ,we have to put Bill and Hill behind us.

That part isn't done yet, so we'll be digging into the archives a bit more.

[TexasObserver]

6. Yes, we can!!

[Jamastiene]

3. If we want people to vote against him,

the elderly never ever work as any kind of incentive. Sad, but true. We need to say he isn't Christian enough or isn't homophobic enough somehow. That's how to get the majority to vote against him. That's the secret to the whole thing in the primaries for both parties and in the general election, sadly. :eyes: