The McCain campaign will ramp up the "guilt by association" attacks on Obama

Here it comes. The economy is headed into clear and unambiguous recession four weeks before the Presidential election and McCain's poll numbers are dropping. So the McCain camp is going to try to change the subject off the economy and onto Obama's alleged connection to his fellow-Chicagoan, ex-weatherman Bill Ayers.

Of course, there is no connection between Obama and Ayers other than rarely being in the same room. The McCain camp is going to try to make that into something it is not. There is a much better argument that can be made that McCain is a supporter of North Vietnamese Communism because he spent five and a half years in one of their living facilities.

The guilt bay association attack goes two ways. It is clear that John McCain's close friendship with the ex-Lincoln Savings & Loan chief, Charles Keating led McCain to try to stop the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB.) from going after Keating for his criminal activities that caused the collapse of Lincoln S&L.

From the New York Times:

The sharpest questioning today was from Mr. Heflin, who interrogated Mr. McCain about his late payments to the American Continental Corporation, Mr. Keating's Arizona holding company, for flights he and his family took on the company's corporate aircraft from 1983 to 1986.

Mr. McCain, who of the five Senators was the closest socially to Mr. Keating, would travel with the businessman to his vacation home in the Bahamas, where they swam, snorkeled and went fishing. But he did not repay more than $13,000 to American Continental until 1989, when he said the company notified him that the bill was due. [Snip]

Under questioning by Mr. Bennett, Mr. McCain said it had never occurred to him that it would seem improper for a lawmaker to have such a close personal relationship with a major political supporter with a matter pending before Federal savings and loan regulators. Politics and Friendship

"I don't think being in political office precludes me from having friends," he said.

Compare that history to the one reported by the New York Times between Obama and Ayers:

At a tumultuous meeting of anti-Vietnam War militants at the Chicago Coliseum in 1969, Bill Ayers helped found the radical Weathermen, launching a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and United States Capitol.

Twenty-six years later, at a lunchtime meeting about school reform in a Chicago skyscraper, Barack Obama met Mr. Ayers, by then an education professor. Their paths have crossed sporadically since then, at a coffee Mr. Ayers hosted for Mr. Obama's first run for office, on the schools project and a charitable board, and in casual encounters as Hyde Park neighbors. [Snip]

[T]he two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called "somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8."

So here it comes. Obama has associated with someone who was a domestic terrorist 38 years ago when Obama was age 8. But The candidate who is orchestrating the baseless smear is John McCain who took free rides on Keating's jet to his Bahama's getaway and went snorkeling with Charles Keating before trying to stop the FHLB from closing down Keatings already bankrupt Lincoln Saving and Loan.

There's net even any smoke in the Obama - Ayers accusation. There is clearly both smoke and fire in the accusation that McCain was bought by Charles Keating and worked to get him out of his legal problems in exchange for the money and free trips.

That's where McCain's guilt-by-association goes. Directly at the Keating Five scandal.