Key States Moving to Obama

The house(s) is/are on fire. Key states are crossing over to Obama.

Expect even more desperate moves by Big Mac. If these hold up, we're talking electoral college landslide. States that have crossed over:

Florida

Obama 47.9
McCain 46.4

And so goes Ohio.

Obama 48.0
McCain 46.1

And Nevada.

Obama 48.0
McCain 47.7

And Virginia.

Obama 47.8
McCain 47.5

Key States Moving to Obama

The house(s) is/are on fire. Key states are crossing over to Obama.

Expect even more desperate moves by Big Mac. If these hold up, we're talking electoral college landslide. States that have crossed over:

Florida

Obama 47.9
McCain 46.4

And so goes Ohio.

Obama 48.0
McCain 46.1

And Nevada.

Obama 48.0
McCain 47.7

And Virginia.

Obama 47.8
McCain 47.5

The Rebel Alliance Strikes Back

I was thinking they might be waiting until the end of the campaign to pull out the Keating Five ammo. There hasn't been word one about it from the Obama people until now.

Here it comes. Fresh and ready to link the current economic scandals with McCain's historic lapses in judgment (or worse).

Keating Economics - Obama for America

"The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain's attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late '80s and early '90s.

John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee launched investigations and formally reprimanded Senator McCain for his role in the scandal -- the first such Senator to receive a major party nomination for president.

At the heart of the scandal was Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which took advantage of deregulation in the 1980s to make risky investments with its depositors' money. McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry -- actions that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers.

When the savings and loan industry collapsed, Keating's failed company put taxpayers on the hook for $3.4 billion and more than 20,000 Americans lost their savings. John McCain was reprimanded by the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee, but the ultimate cost of the crisis to American taxpayers reached more than $120 billion.

The Keating scandal is eerily similar to today's credit crisis, where a lack of regulation and cozy relationships between the financial industry and Congress has allowed banks to make risky loans and profit by bending the rules. And in both cases, John McCain's judgment and values have placed him on the wrong side of history."

The Rebel Alliance Strikes Back

I was thinking they might be waiting until the end of the campaign to pull out the Keating Five ammo. There hasn't been word one about it from the Obama people until now.

Here it comes. Fresh and ready to link the current economic scandals with McCain's historic lapses in judgment (or worse).

Keating Economics - Obama for America

"The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain's attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late '80s and early '90s.

John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee launched investigations and formally reprimanded Senator McCain for his role in the scandal -- the first such Senator to receive a major party nomination for president.

At the heart of the scandal was Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which took advantage of deregulation in the 1980s to make risky investments with its depositors' money. McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry -- actions that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers.

When the savings and loan industry collapsed, Keating's failed company put taxpayers on the hook for $3.4 billion and more than 20,000 Americans lost their savings. John McCain was reprimanded by the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee, but the ultimate cost of the crisis to American taxpayers reached more than $120 billion.

The Keating scandal is eerily similar to today's credit crisis, where a lack of regulation and cozy relationships between the financial industry and Congress has allowed banks to make risky loans and profit by bending the rules. And in both cases, John McCain's judgment and values have placed him on the wrong side of history."

Prediction - Vicki Iseman Recycled Next

Now that McCain has gone with guilt by association route and Obama has countered with the incredibly relevant Keating Five, will we be hearing a lot more of Bud Paxson and Vicki Iseman and their association with McCain after Keating Five wave crests?

Matthew Yglesias - A Real Story (Politics ) - The Atlantic - 21 Feb 08

"Basically, in exchange for money and freebies, McCain sought to intervene in a federal regulatory process in favor of a company that had provided him with tens of thousands of dollars in cash and services. He could try to plead naiveté, but in light of the hot water he got into with the Keating Five affair, which had the exactly same structure, he clearly knew what he was doing and knew that it was wrong."

Prediction - Vicki Iseman Recycled Next

Now that McCain has gone with guilt by association route and Obama has countered with the incredibly relevant Keating Five, will we be hearing a lot more of Bud Paxson and Vicki Iseman and their association with McCain after Keating Five wave crests?

Matthew Yglesias - A Real Story (Politics ) - The Atlantic - 21 Feb 08

"Basically, in exchange for money and freebies, McCain sought to intervene in a federal regulatory process in favor of a company that had provided him with tens of thousands of dollars in cash and services. He could try to plead naiveté, but in light of the hot water he got into with the Keating Five affair, which had the exactly same structure, he clearly knew what he was doing and knew that it was wrong."

Rolling Stone Rolls on McCain

Lengthy article on the making of a myth.

Make-Believe Maverick - Rolling Stone - 16 Oct 08

"A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty.

"Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. 'McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man,' Dramesi says today. 'But he's still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in.'"

"In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot."

Rolling Stone Rolls on McCain

Lengthy article on the making of a myth.

Make-Believe Maverick - Rolling Stone - 16 Oct 08

"A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty.

"Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. 'McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man,' Dramesi says today. 'But he's still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in.'"

"In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot."