THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

From the NY Times:

Mr. McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has recently begun campaigning as a critic of the two companies [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] and the lobbying army that helped them evade greater regulation as they began buying riskier mortgages with implicit federal backing.

But last week the McCain campaign stepped up a running battle of guilt by association when it began broadcasting commercials trying to link Mr. Obama directly to the government bailout of the mortgage giants this month by charging that he takes advice from Fannie Mae’s former chief executive, Franklin Raines, an assertion both Mr. Raines and the Obama campaign dispute.

In past elections this would have been glossed over in the news while the talking heads woudl tsk-tsk the Democrat. Not this time.

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions.

“The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis “didn’t really do anything,” Mr. McCarson, a Democrat, said.

Game and set. And just like the good old days on McEnroe and Connors, the Old Farts leading slimer and Rove protege, Steve Schmidt threw a hissy fit , furious that the New York Times would print the truth. Methinks he should pound salt up his ass to calm down.