Rove, McCain, Keating Five Scandal

09 August 2008 |permalink | email article

Bush’s Brain, in the Wall Street Journal, seemed less than impressed with the performance so far of the presumed Republican nominee.

Noting that Obama “has the easier path to victory,” Rove wrote that McCain’s challenge is to persuade voters that he has a vision for the next four years. “This will require a disciplined, focused effort” – not one of the candidate’s chief assets.

I was struck by Rove’s emphasis on character, noting that McCain is the most private person to run for president since silent Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s.

“He needs to share (or allow others to share) more about him, especially his faith…McCain offers little biography, while Obama is nothing but. “

(McCain has said he won’t discuss his religion on the campaign trail and has had a contentious relationship with evangelical leaders.)

That Rove would mention character is ironic now because he was chief strategist in a George W. Bush-sponsored poll in the 2000 South Carolina presidential primary which raised McCain’s role in the famous Keating Five savings and loan scandal.

It began in 1987 and involved Arizona developer Charles Keating, a longtime friend and major benefactor of McCain, who owned a Southern California savings and loan that attracted the attention of Federal auditors.

Keating sought the support of five senators, including McCain, John Glenn and Alan Cranston. The bailout of Lincoln Savings and Loan, not seized for two years, cost taxpayers $2.6 billion.

In 1990, the Senate Ethics Committee launched a televised investigation of meetings between the senators and regulators. Three months later, McCain and Glenn where found to be the least culpable – with McCain guilty of “poor judgment.” Keating served four years in prison before his conviction was overturned.

In 2000 McCain said that his involvement in the scandal “will probably be on my tombstone.” Will Democrats or the media raise the character issue, or might it surface in the debates?

191