Obama Campaign Hits McCain Adviser's Ties To Mortgage Giants

[ProSense]

Obama Campaign Hits McCain Adviser's Ties To Mortgage Giants

By Greg Sargent - September 22, 2008, 9:47AM

The Obama campaign is going after McCain over a story in today's New York Times reporting that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis took a staggering $30,000 a month for five years as the head of a group set up by Fannie and Freddie to defend them against stricter government regulations.

The Obama campaign's broadside came in response to a McCain ad released this morning tying Obama to the Rezko mess. From Obama campaign spokesperson Bill Burton:

"It's no coincidence that on the very day newspapers reported that John McCain's campaign manager was paid $2 million to lobby against tighter regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the McCain campaign would launch this false, gratuitous attack. Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate as an independent Democrat. He took on the Chicago Democratic organization in a primary to win a seat in the US Senate. And in both Illinois and Washington, he has challenged the Old Guard for landmark ethics reforms."

In the current environment, the Times story should be an important one by any measure. In one particularly choice nugget, a former Fannie exec explains why currying favor with Davis was seen as so valuable to the mortgage giants:

"The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again," said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis's firm $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis "didn't really do anything," Mr. McCarson, a Democrat, said.

So according to this exec, it was worth it to Fannie, in its quest to fend off regulatory oversight, to pay tens of thousands of dollars a month to Davis simply because of the possibility that McCain would become president.

Loan Titans Paid McCain Adviser Nearly $2 Million

[mrJJ]

1. We need a 527 to make the rebuttal ad

Hope a 527 puts a rebutal ad up

McCain=Keating5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ2eayWR3dU

Gramm=Enron=Dregulation=Country of Whiners

McCains Campaign Manager=35k mos for 5 yeasr to help Freddy & Fanny duck regulators

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJThPjvscFs

Lets see $200 Billion For McCains Keating5's S&L mess. $700 Billion for McCains deregulation of Wall Street mess.

Then we add $596 trillion in derivatives debt (Thank You, Sen Gramm), over $2.5 trillion in credit card debt, and $58 trillion in credit default swaps

http://www.wallstreetdigest.com/hotline.php

Good Job Sen McCain

[Democat]

2. Obama is not "hitting" unless he's running brutal ads

Press releases and speeches don't "hit" these days - paid advertising does.

Obama should run ads in every swing state to hammer McCain on this issue.

[ProSense]

3. Nonsense. n/t