Oh my God. They admit outright that earlier this decade they paid $2m to the man who is now John McCain's campaign manager in order to buy influence with John McCain as Senator and as possible president (they also paid him to derail legislation that would have increased federal regulation of the banking industry). There should be a campaign to demand that McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, give ever penny back to the American people. There had better be an ad about this out by COB Monday, and calls for Davis' resignation.

 Quote:
Loan Titans Paid McCain Adviser Nearly $2 Million
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and CHARLES DUHIGG
Published: September 21, 2008

Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say....

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions.

“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.


Ultimately, this is all damaging to one person and one party. John McCain and the Republicans. Oh, sure they've been trying to pretend tey're not the ones who aggressively advocate and believe in deregulation as a core philosophy (what was that one famous Reagan line that you all parrot religiously like if it was brought down by Moses on a stone tablet? hmm?), but now they don't even use their party name much or even mention the guy who still leads their party and is their President.

And sure they flail about trying to find links to pin this on Democrats. But all that ends up surfacing is more incriminating links to THEM. And specifically to McCain's staff, the guy himself and his economic advisor Phil Gramm.

All one has to do is look at the Republican Presidential administrations since the 1920s. Calvin Coolidge oversaw on his watch failed prohibition and gangsters literally hijacking the country. His Republican Counter part was elected, Herbert Hoover and we saw the absolute worst Depression in American History. America was virtually destitute. It took a Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt, to get America out of the economic mess it was in. That makes two failed Republican administrations, prior to Roosevelt. If you count Warren G. Harding, it is three.

After that, you have a history that includes Black Monday,The S&L crisis and now this meltdown, I'd stop believing GOP lies about them being better stewards of the economy. Fact is Politicians Lie, Numbers Don't

 Quote:
If you're wondering why a formerly honorable man like John McCain would build his presidential campaign around issues that are simultaneously beside-the-point, trivial, and dishonest (sex education for kindergartners, lipstick on pigs), the numbers presented here may help to solve that mystery. Since the conventions ended, McCain has mired the presidential race in dishonest trivia because he doesn't want it to focus on what voters say is the most important issue this year: the economy.

There is no secret about any of this. The figures below are all from the annual Economic Report of the President, and the analysis is primitive. Nevertheless, what these numbers show almost beyond doubt is that Democrats are better at virtually every economic task that is important to Republicans.

In other words, there are no figures here about income inequality, or percentage of the population with health insurance, or anything like that. This exercise implicitly assumes that lower taxes are always good and higher government spending is always bad. There is nothing here about how clean the air is or how many children are growing up in poverty. The only point is that if you find the Republican mantra of lower taxes and smaller government appealing, and if you care only about how fast the economy is growing, not how that growth is shared, you should vote Democratic. Of course, if you do care about things like economic inequality and children's health, you should vote Democratic as well.


But ultinmately the public really doesn't need any of these proofs. They've been hearing GOP rhetoric for decades now and aern't suddenly going to forget that the GOP is the party of deregulation just because McCain accuses Obama of having an advisor tied to Fannie Mae.