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Tumulty: McCain's campaign racist for Raines ad
She said that she's from Texas and knows how it works, or something to that effect.
Lord. If you can't even comment on an Obama advisor being involved with Fannie Mae... seriously.
1) She was mad because they mentioned Raines and not Jim Johnson, but I bet she felt stupid when she found out there was an ad on him, too.
The link is from Time.
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/09/mccain_plays_the_race_card.html
When politicians interject race into a campaign, they seldom do it directly. Consider McCain's new ad, which the campaign says it will be airing nationally:
This is hardly subtle: Sinister images of two black men, followed by one of a vulnerable-looking elderly white woman.
Let me stipulate: Obama's Fannie Mae connections are completely fair game. But this ad doesn't even mention a far more significant tie--that of Jim Johnson, the former Fannie Mae chairman who had to resign as head of Obama's vice presidential search team after it was revealed he got a sweetheart deal on a mortgage from Countrywide Financial. Instead, it relies on a fleeting and tenuous reference in a Washington Post Style section story to suggest that Obama's principal economic adviser is former Fannie Mae Chairman Frank Raines. Why? One reason might be that Johnson is white; Raines is black.
And the image of the victim doesn't seem accidental either, given the fact that older white women are a key swing constituency in this election.
After the McCain campaign introduced the ad, the Obama campaign responded with this statement:
Statement from Frank Raines on the ad: "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters."
"This is another flat-out lie from a dishonorable campaign that is increasingly incapable of telling the truth. Frank Raines has never advised Senator Obama about anything -- ever. And by the way, someone whose campaign manager and top advisor worked and lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shouldn't be throwing stones from his seven glass houses," said Obama-Biden campaign spokesman Bill Burton.
At Politico, Ben Smith reports:
McCain spokesman Brian Rogers notes that Obama didn't contradict the claim when it first appeared in the Post.
But that's not really the point of the ad, is it?
UPDATE: The McCain campaign has now put out an ad on Jim Johnson. Please see my post above.
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Also, the decrying of racist Ohio voters (by Dem representatives like Hagan and another guy from Warren) is getting really old. It used to be on Drudge Report but got moved so I can't find it. A related blog is on cleveland.com
Re: Tumulty: McCain's campaign racist for Raines ad
I've been trying to understand this issue.
It says Raines isn't an advisor to Obama. So if that's true, why is McCain running an ad that says he is?
I think that's where the racist accusations are coming into play. Rather than use a white guy who is an advisor to Obama (and was also much, much more powerful at FM than Raines), they are using some random black dude from FM that has no ties to Obama or (maybe minimal ties?) simply for the shock value of having a commerical with two black dudes and an old white lady.
I do think the racism cries here are pretty thin. But, I don't think it's the Obama campaign crying racism, they are just crying "this is false." Because it is.
I don't think Obama should be held responsible for how the media is interpreting things.
Oh wow. Fannie Mae has been in the news. We're bailing them out, and Raines was directly tied to corruption. And that should be off the table? Please, and he DID do ads linking Obama to Jim Johnson, a white guy. Heck, I didn't even know Raines was black.
Did you even see the ad? Her characterization is really stupid.
Can you really not see why a FANNIE MAE person above others would be noticed?
(and you guys wonder why there has been a mass exit of conservatives--"Sarah Palin's cuckoo" in one thread, this in another, "what's your point?" as a rejoinder)
There's no debate here. I knew it was over when I saw that Sarah Palin met with a women whose son died in Iraq. I almost posted it because I thought it was nice for her to meet with him in our hometown area, but I didn't because I knew even that would be met with some vitriolic response like she killed him or her party killed him.
We are seriously doubting that there is anything for us here.
Here's my question:
The McCain ad says Raines is an Obama advisor. Obama says Raines isn't his advisor.
I don't understand why McCain is running an ad saying Raines is Obama's advisor if he isn't.
I'm saying the Jim ads are fair game. I've got no problem with those. I just don't understand the Raines ad. If he's not an Obama advisor, why is McCain running ads saying he is?
Um...does anyone know if Raines is actually an Obama advisor? I'm finding conflicting info.
And Julie, if you really think I was dismissive and insulting to you in this post, please PM me. I'm not going to sit here and try to guess what I did to drive you from this board again because I can't for the life of me figure it out and I don't like being blamed for it.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/09/obamas_fannie_mae_connection.html
From the Washington Post Fact Checker:
An already nasty presidential election campaign is getting nastier. The meltdown on Wall Street has touched off frantic attempts by both the McCain and Obama camps to secure political advantage and indulge in guilt by association. Over the past 24 hours, both campaigns have issued video press releases (let's not call them ads until they actually air somewhere) attempting to show that the other side's "advisers" are somehow responsible for the crisis. The latest McCain attack is particularly dubious.
The Facts
The McCain video attempts to link Obama to Franklin Raines, the former CEO of the bankrupt mortgage giant, Fannie Mae, who also happens to be African American. It then shows a photograph of an elderly white woman taxpayer who has supposedly been "stuck with the bill" as a result of the "extensive financial fraud" at Fannie Mae.
The Obama campaign last night issued a statement by Raines insisting, "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters." Obama spokesman Bill Burton went a little further, telling me in an e-mail that the campaign had "neither sought nor received" advice from Raines "on any matter."
So what evidence does the McCain campaign have for the supposed Obama-Raines connection? It is pretty flimsy, but it is not made up completely out of whole cloth. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers points to three items in the Washington Post in July and August. It turns out that the three items (including an editorial) all rely on the same single conversation, between Raines and a Washington Post business reporter, Anita Huslin, who wrote a profile of the discredited Fannie Mae boss that appeared on July 16. The profile reported that Raines, who retired from Fannie Mae four years ago, had "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters."
Since this has now become a campaign issue, I asked Huslin to provide the exact circumstances of the quote. She explained that she was chatting with Raines during the photo shoot, and asked "if he was engaged at all with the Democrats' quest for the White House. He said that he had gotten a couple of calls from the Obama campaign. I asked him about what, and he said 'oh, general housing, economy issues.' ('Not mortgage/foreclosure meltdown or Fannie-specific,' I asked, and he said 'no.')"
By Raines's own account, he took a couple of calls from someone on the Obama campaign, and they had some general discussions about economic issues. I have asked both Raines and the Obama people for more details on these calls and will let you know if I receive a reply.
The Pinocchio Test
The McCain campaign is clearly exaggerating wildly in attempting to depict Franklin Raines as a close adviser to Obama on "housing and mortgage policy." If we are to believe Raines, he did have a couple of telephone conversations with someone in the Obama campaign. But that hardly makes him an adviser to the candidate himself -- and certainly not in the way depicted in the McCain video release.
Thank you marriednow.