Monday Morning: Global Financial Downer, The Campaign Gets Personal, And Mavericks Bite Back

Good morning. Or, anyway, the weather in DC looks like it'll be nice today. As for the financial markets, well. Here's an AP line that gave us a queasy start this morning:

Investors are realizing the Bush administration's $700 billion rescue plan won't work quickly enough to unfreeze the credit markets, and that many banks are still having difficulties gaining access to cash.

European governments spent the weekend offering lifelines to failing banks. And this morning, markets plunged both across the pond and in Asia, and as of this posting the Dow has plunged below 10,000 for the first time since 2004. On the silver lining front, all of this economic mayhem means oil prices have fallen below $90 a barrel. But on the other hand, that may be a harbinger of more bad news to come. An inauspicious beginning to the week, to be sure.

Moving on to the lighthearted business of picking our next President...things are getting personal in election-land. This weekend Sarah Palin kicked into full VP candidate attack-dog mode, invoking the specter of former Weatherman Bill Ayers, who was an associate of Obama's in Chicago. At a stop on Saturday (and subsequently repeating the sentiment elsewhere), Palin offered the following stark comparison between the GOP ticket and their opponents, portraying Obama as un-American and a threat to the nation's values.

This is not a man who sees America as you and I do -- as the greatest force for good in the world. This is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.

Palin cited a recent New York Times article about the Obama-Ayers connection, although the piece dismisses the link between the two as pretty tenuous:

...Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers...

(As an aside, Ayers recently posted this comic strip to his website in an effort to explain/defend controversial remarks he made that the Weathermen, which engaged in violent protest acts during the Vietnam War, "didn't do enough".) Palin also told NYT columnist Bill Kristol that she was willing to discuss Obama's former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright on the stump as well, but was waiting for the go-ahead from Senator McCain.

In response to the Ayers hit, the Obama campaign is bringing out their own big guns. Today they're unveiling a large-scale public reminder that John McCain was one of the "Keating Five", a group of Senators tied to Charles Keating, a figure central to the Savings and Loan scandal during the late 80s and early 90s. The campaign had held off on exploiting that aspect of McCain's history until now, but apparently the gloves are off. Campaign manager David Plouffe emailed supporters last night promoting a 13-minute documentary video about the Keating Five. (The video goes live at noon on this website.) Plouffe's email also suggested a comparison between the S&L crisis and the current economic situation:

In that crisis, John McCain and his political patron, Charles Keating, played central roles that ultimately landed Keating in jail for fraud and McCain in front of the Senate Ethics Committee. 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.

McCain's affiliation with Keating ultimately caused him to be reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee for "poor judgment" -- though it's important to note that the Committee did not determine that McCain had violated Senate rules. McCain has called his close relationship with Keating "the worst mistake of my life" and credits it with inspiring him to become an anti-corruption crusader, ultimately co-authoring the landmark campaign finance reform legislation with Democrat Russ Feingold that put him at odds with many in his party.

To sum up: the spaghetti is really flying...so now we wait and see what sticks to the wall.

And finally, the Maverick family of Texas is sick of what they see as the misappropriation of their brand by a certain Republican ticket.

-- Evie Stone

11:00 AM ET | 10- 6-2008 | permalink

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