Obama Campaign Hits Back at McCain With Keating Five Web Video

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama, after attacks on his character and past associations, is hitting back by highlighting John McCain's ties to the ``Keating Five'' savings-and-loan scandal that embroiled the Republican presidential nominee in the 1980s.

David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, e-mailed millions of supporters on Oct. 5 directing them to a new Web site, keatingeconomics.com, dedicated to McCain's ties to the scandal. It features a 30-second Web advertisement and beginning at noon Washington time the site will also host a 13-minute documentary called ``Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis'' produced by the campaign.

``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,'' Plouffe wrote.

With less than a month before election day and Obama's poll numbers rising amid the financial meltdown, the Democratic presidential candidate is hoping to link McCain's approach to the current financial crisis with his role in the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s. The attacks come as McCain's campaign said last week it would divert attention from the economy to focus on Obama's character.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aY.Vd2e8Yyjg&refer=home

http://www.keatingeconomics.com/