"They go Rezko, we go Keating"

Brian Rogers, McCain spokesman:

"Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses?"

Let's git it on, you little bitch.

"They go Rezko, we go Keating," said a Democratic strategist, speaking on the condition of anonymity to divulge potential campaign strategy. "If they want to escalate, bring it on."

This is how you win a mothereffin' election in the RoveWorld.

The Keating Five is an old story, so many reporters have shied away from saying much about it because it isn't new -- there aren't a whole lot of new developments in the story. But with McCain talking about allegedly shady relationships, the opportunity is there to go back over McCain's ties to Keating -- whose nefarious activities, which were at least in part aided by his relationship with McCain, ended up costing the American taxpayer $3.4 billion (a whole lot more than the $14 million Rezko was alleged to have received).

Just how close was McCain to Keating? Take a look at this rundown I posted back in January:

Though McCain might try to downplay his involvement, his campaigns received $124,000 from Keating and his associates during the 1980s (AP, 3/2/91), and McCain was described as being personally closer to Keating than any of the other members of the Keating Five (Roll Call, 1/20/92). What's more, McCain accepted more than $15,000 in free trips from Keating, including vacations to Keating's resort in the Bahamas -- trips that McCain failed to disclose at the time (New York Times, 2/28/91; San Francisco Chronicle, 12/3/90).

In the end, the crash of Keating's savings and loan -- which had been shielded by some of his best friends in the United States Senate -- cost billions to the American taxpayer, as mentioned above, and all told the federal government ended up on the hook for close to $125 billion in the fallout of the crisis that befell the underregulated industry in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Does McCain really want to have to talk about all of this? About the Bahaman vacations he took paid for by Keating? Probably not. But he may soon have to as a result of the shortsightedness of his campaign advisors.

Like Brian Rogers.

Attacks will keep working for the Republicans until we beat them at their game. That, and only that, will force them to think up a new game in 2012. In a post-Rove environment.