http://keatingeconomics.com/

And it's got nice video linking McCain to this mess. Win or lose, I sure like how Obama has raised the bar for direct to the people communication.

The text messages are great, unobtrusive and quick. The lies site was good too. This one appears to be a similar quality effort.

All nicely branded, tightly message controlled and relevant.

From the site: . . . When the savings and loan industry collapsed, Keating's failed company put taxpayers on the hook for $3.4 billion and more than 20,000 Americans lost their savings. John McCain was reprimanded by the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee, but the ultimate cost of the crisis to American taxpayers reached more than $120 billion. . . .

Once again, the Obama campaign has done a fine job of setting the record straight. This economic crisis is due to a host of poor policy decisions by lawmakers from both sides of the aisle. History is a cruel mistress, so much of it can be made to sit squarely on McCain.

Because this ammunition was held in reserve, the Keating scandal is still a large cache of fresh dry powder. With the economy on the front page, a concerted effort to remind Americans of this outrage could do some real permanent damage over the next four weeks.

And it's dry powder because Obama is the kind of leader that thinks things through well enough to form effective strategy. There is strength in that too. Knowing where it could go, limits the power in low brow slander type moves.

That kind of thing sucks, but it can be leveraged too.

McCain has stepped in several times to throw a punch, only to have Obama step aside, grab his arm and use that forward movement to toss McCain across the room!

Here's the problem with this. Political junkies like us drool over juicy information like this. Most people won't sit through 13+ minutes of video on a 20 year old financial scandal. Like Gary Oldman's character in the Candidate said something along the lines of "No one cares about financial impropriety. FIND ME THE SEX."

True enough. However, Obama has a great ground operation running. Having a ready resource like this prevents stuff from festering. And it makes for quick conversation.

Those of us, supporting Obama, have what we need to both confirm our choice (lots of online docs), and those facts necessary to put nut-bags in their place.

Solid points made in favor of McCain will stand, and that's fine. There just are not that many of them and those that are there are not the current focus.

FIND ME THE SEX.

But doesn't McCain have a few sex related incidents hidden under the carpet himself? I'm betting Palin does too.

So, lets get dirty!

" Like Gary Oldman's character in the Candidate "

I think you meant " The Contender " and I only caught that minor error because it was on TV a couple nights ago and I thought about it all the next day...and how much I loved that film.

And how badly I need to finish my screenplay that will star Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, Giovanni Ribisi, Ed Norton, Frank Langella, Sam Rockwell, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kristen Stewart, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilksinson, Melora Walters, Catherine Keener, Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro, Paul Giamatti, Anne Hathaway, Gary Sinese, Robert Downey Jr. and Eddie Izzard.

It's going to be an epic.

I wanted Sydney Pollack to direct. Maybe Paul Thomas Anderson now though. And I get to be the writer AND music supervisor. Heck, I'll even be craft services if that means I can be on-set a lot.

Yeah right "the Candidate" was a 70's Robert Redford political movie about running a campaign. I meant "the Contender."

My point was that Obama needs to frame the debate in two ways at the same time. First, I only listened to about 3/4ths of the second debate. Barack only said "feel" once by my count. He doesn't use the words that he "feels" or "cares" or whatever emotion is appropriate for the subject. People respond to emotions, not Power Point presentation style layouts of policy agendas. Secondly, these emotional appeals need to be short. Long windedness is a fault in debates. I feel that if Obama can pick these two ideas up and run with them he can do much better.

CJ: Yeah that's one helluva ensemble. It's hard to make a political movies without coming off as preachy or too dry or both.

When someone is shooting themselves in the foot, get the heck out of the way so you don't take a stray bullet.

Obama is showing steady leadership and this is why the numbers are going in his direction.