Today it became clear that the McCain campaign is trying to suggest that if it weren't for black people like Barack Obama and Frank Raines (past head of Fannie Mae, the privatized former federal agency which helps insure the flow of mortgage funding), the financial crisis wouldn't have happened.
This afternoon on C-SPAN radio, an economic advisor to John McCain argued that the financial meltdown this past week was caused entirely by Fannie Mae (rather than by the Bush Administration's deregulation, Wall Street's credit default swaps -- called "financial weapons of mass destruction" by Warren Buffett -- or by irresponsible practices by investment banks, cited by Secretary Paulsen).
Lately a McCain television ad has been running, showing shadowy pictures of Obama and Frank Raines, who is African-American and whose Fannie Mae bonuses were the subject of a civil lawsuit. The ad said that Raines was a major economic advisor to Obama, though the Obama campaign swiftly denied that, and various media outlets challenged the facts of the McCain ad.
Take a look at the Raines-Obama ad yourself, with the Washington Post's refutation of its claims:
On Friday, McCain himself claimed that the financial crisis was somehow caused by corrupt lobbying, in which Obama was entangled, though he offered no proof of the latter (because of course there is none).
When you view these things together, it looks like McCain is trying to insinuate that Obama and his black cronies created the financial crisis. This amalgamates distortion and lying by a presidential campaign with racist insinuation, trying to connect white voters' anxiety about the financial crisis to supposed latent doubts about Obama because he is black. It is utterly outrageous and frankly suggests that McCain is completely unfit for the presidency.
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