With the shaky economy at the forefront of voters minds, John McCain wanted to convince voters that Barack Obama was unfit to set the country on the right financial path.
The Republican presidential candidate's first offering was an ominous spot tying Obama to ousted Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, who the Democrat's campaign says is not an adviser. Why make that connection? Some are speculating that it allowed the McCain campaign to play the "race card" because Raines is African American.
"This is hardly subtle," writes Time's Karen Tumulty. "Sinister images of two black men, followed by one of a vulnerable-looking elderly white woman."
All the rebuttals pointed to essentially the same backup McCain's campaign used in making the connection -- this Washington Post article and a subsequent editorial.
There really is no evidence beyond pieces which mention "phone calls" from unidentified members of the Obama campaign and refer to Rains as part of the Democrat's "political circle."
Neither piece presents much evidence of a relationship between the two men, and a Lexis Nexis database search turned up just two other mentions of Raines as an "informal adviser," neither of which attribute the information.
In a fact check of the McCain ad Friday, the Post said the Republican's campaign was "exaggerating wildly" and provided more detail on the reports.
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 reporter, Anita Huslin, who wrote a Style section 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.
It's unclear whether the Obama campaign requested a correction to either of the Post items when they first appeared in July. A campaign spokesman did not immediately respond to RAW STORY's request for clarification. The Associated Press reports that campaign spokesman Bill Burton has since asked for a correction.
McCain is not backing away from the Raines connection, though. The candidate himself made the charge during a campaign stop in Green Bay Friday.
"Another CEO for Fannie Mae, Mr. Raines, has been advising Senator Obama on housing policy. This even after Fannie Mae was found to have committed quote "extensive financial fraud" under his leadership," McCain said. "Like Mr. Johnson, Mr. Raines walked away with tens of millions of dollars."
The Obama campaign told AP that at least one McCain campaign adviser knew the connection they were about to make was wrong, although it seems that message still hasn't reached the top levels of the campaign.
Obama's campaign says Raines is not an Obama adviser and that McCain's campaign knows it because Raines said so in an e-mail earlier this week to Carly Fiorina, a top McCain adviser. Obama's campaign provided The Associated Press with a copy of the e-mail.
"Carly: Is this true?" Raines asks above a forwarded note informing him that Fiorina was on television saying he was an Obama housing adviser. "I am not an adviser to the Obama campaign. Frank."
Obama's campaign says Fiorina did not respond.
A more convincing attack on Obama's ties to Fannie Mae would highlight his past connection to Jim Johnson, Raines predecessor at the mortgage firm who at one point was running Obama's vice presidential search before he had to be let go in the midst of his own scandal. Johnson and Obama were mentioned simultaneously in 379 news articles, according to a database search; that's 10 times more than Obama and Raines, whose names both appeared in just 34 articles prior to the release of McCain's ad.
Later Friday morning, McCain's campaign released a separate ad highlighting the Johnson connection and purchased national air time for it.
Obama's campaign hit back with its own advertisement targeting McCain advisers Carly Fiorina, who received a $42 million severance after being fired from HP, and Phil Gramm, who was excoriated earlier this year for mocking a country worried about its economic future as a "nation of whiners."
McCain's campaign released the following two ads Friday:
With the shaky economy at the forefront of voters minds, John McCain wanted to convince voters that Barack Obama was unfit to set the country on the right financial path. 