Despite John McCain's best attempts to tie Barack Obama to discredited ex-Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines in his speech yesterday in Green Bay, Wisconsin and a newly released ad ( you can see it here), the Republican candidate instead faces new charges of lying in the face of near-financial disaster for the country to make a false political point. And if that's not bad enough, McCain's advertising staff does its best to inject a racial aspect into the whole shebang.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 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 that passage. She said 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.')"
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.
"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.
This is hardly subtle: Sinister images of two black men, followed by one of a vulnerable-looking elderly white woman.
[snip]
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.

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