Time to Play the "Keating 5" Card

(updated below with response from Obama campaign)

McCain's latest ad is a classic of the Republican guilt-by-association genre. The basic logic of the ad (if you can even call it logic) is this:

1) Chicago = Bad and Corrupt

2) Obama is from Chicago

3) Therefore, Obama = Bad and Corrupt

My favorite part of the ad is when the narrator mentions the supposed malfeasance of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and points out that he's "Obama's Governor." I guess everyone in Illinois is corrupt by virtue of having Blagojevich as their governor. Makes perfect sense.

In all seriousness, though, if McCain wants to go down this road, I think he's more than opened the door to Democrats raising the "Keating 5" scandal. Not only was that an example of actual corruption (as a opposed to just guilt-by-association), but the substance of that corruption is directly relevant to the current financial turmoil. For those of you unfamiliar with the scandal, I recommend this article from McCain's hometown paper. Long story short, McCain and four other Senators (the other four being Democrats, to be fair) went to bat for Charles Keating, who ran the Keating Savings and Loan, to help keep regulators off his back. The S&L eventually went bankrupt and many people lost their life savings. Keating and his businesses had made major contributions over the years to each of the five Senators (McCain and Keating were also close personal friends who had vacationed together). Although McCain's actions were not as bad as some of the others, there was no question that he had exercised very poor judgment in the affair.
Because McCain has shown contrition about this episode in the past, for the most part the media hasn't brought it up. But if he's going to accuse his opponent of corruption--especially in such a cheap and unsubstantiated way--he richly deserves to have this very real act of corruption brought into the discussion.

UPDATE: Well, ask and ye shall receive. The Obama campaign plays the Keating 5 card. Here's part of a statement released to the press today:

# of probing stories the NY Times has written over the course of the campaign about Barack Obama, his life, his religion, his childhood, his politics, his time in the state senate, his time in the U.S. Senate, his family, his religion, his friends, his fundraising and all other manner of associations: more than 40

# of stories the NY Times has written over the course of the campaign about the last major financial regulatory crisis, resulting in a huge bailout, and which John McCain was centrally involved in with his political godfather Charles Keating: 0

Ben Smith's response is a little annoying, though. He writes:

The Keating Five scandal, though, is hardly a secret. Indeed, the story is central to McCain's political narrative. He's called his actions a mistake, and the episode is what transformed him into a self-styled reformer.

Yes, to people like Ben Smith, McCain's involvement in the Keating 5 scandal is "hardly a secret." But I guarantee you that most voters don't know about it or appreciate the parallels between that scandal and our present circumstances. It's so "central to McCain's political narrative" that it hasn't been mentioned at all during this entire campaign. Moreover, while McCain has in the past cited the scandal as a turning point in his career, it's not as if he had an epiphany at that point and became an advocate for increased regulation of the banking industry. Quite the opposite. And that's why it's relevant. Whatever lesson McCain learned from that episode, it wasn't the right one.