MyDD: McCain's Strategic Blunder: Opening the Door to Keating Five

by Jonathan Singer, Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 06:59:28 PM EST

The McCain campaign thinks that it has an opportunity to turn their candidate's stupendous gaffe -- failing to recall how many houses his family owns -- into a positive by running an advertisement linking Barack Obama to Tony Rezko. Obama, claims the McCain campaign, got help buying his house from Rezko, a Chicagoan who has since gone to jail but received some $14 million in taxpayer money.

The problem with this attack? Aside from being thoroughly misleading -- Obama has not been seriously alleged to have done anything unethical in his interactions with Rezko -- this ad is a serious strategic blunder by the McCain campaign. Why? It blows wide open the door to talk about McCain's all-too-close relationship with Charles Keating and well reported on though somewhat forgotten charter membership in the so-called "Keating Five."