Well, McCrazy's campaign has to get back to the meat'n'potatoes lying, if for no other reason than to stay on familiar rhetorical ground, but it's also a neat (and odious) way for them to finally begin introducing Race into the general election campaign's central nervous system.

I was trying to research this, and couldn't find where this guy was on Obama's team of economic advisers.

Let me get this straight, Raines is NOT on Obama's board of economic advisers?

What an absolute bum.

McCain has gone from talking about make-up last week to making it up this week.

People don't know who that guy is so I don't know how effective this ad is.

This ad is less about this "advisor" and more about putting two black guys together to scare all the white people! The visuals say it all. 'See, what Obama will do if he gets in the white house?' 'He'll fill it with black people! Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc. etc.' That's what you're really getting at, right McCan't?

The campaign puts out a statement from former Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines, disowning ties to Obama, after a McCain ad attacked him for the ties.

The Washington Post reported -- with the kind of blind sourcing that suggests the source was Raines -- that Raines had "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters."

Raines said in the statement through the campaign, "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters."

Obama spokesman Bill Burton added an attack:

This is another flat-out lie from a dishonorable campaign that is increasingly incapable of telling the truth. Frank Raines has never advised Senator Obama about anything -- ever. And by the way, someone whose campaign manager and top advisor worked and lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shouldn't be throwing stones from his seven glass houses.

From Ben Smith's shop.

My first thought was race, but it was a factor, then again we're talking about the republicans.

P.S. Franklin Raines does not advise Obama, but Phil Grahm advises McCain.

a political discourse of lies: welcome to John McCain's vision of a fascist America

Well d'uh - They're both black, so of course they work together. Every single black person in American knows every single other black person in America. And they are all responsible for the behavior of each and every one of them. They're interchangeable!

[rolls eyes]

everybody knows that!

Knowing Republicans of course they did this ad for racial overtones. They could have used anybody else that supposedly adviced Obama but they used this African-American guy in their ad.

As an African-American I can see this ad as a kind of Willie Horton ad in which they put Obama with another black guy who supposedly was "crooked" which connotates the racial stereotypes of blacks and then at the end of the ad they put a face of a white woman who is in the age in which Obama has the most trouble with: women over the age of 65.

The BEST thing that Obama could do is just ignore this ad but put up the ad of Phil Gramm.

No reason to point out race here.

FROM POLITICO:

Raines said in the statement through the campaign, "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters."

Obama spokesman Bill Burton added an attack:

"This is another flat-out lie from a dishonorable campaign that is increasingly incapable of telling the truth. Frank Raines has never advised Senator Obama about anything -- ever. And by the way, someone whose campaign manager and top advisor worked and lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shouldn't be throwing stones from his seven glass houses."

Typical Atwater/Rove style political. No doubt, this is designed to smear Obama's Friday when Obama will be meeting with his economic advisers. The is an attempt to derail the POWERFUL positive message that this meeting will send to voters in tomorrow's and the weekend news cycles. If McCain keeps this up he will give me everything I need to rewrite the republican playbook.

Here is a list of his top advisers.

* AUSTAN GOOLSBEE - The University of Chicago economist is an expert on tax policy and has written extensively on the role of the Internet and technology in the economy. Though he is not on staff with the Obama campaign, he has been a major player in shaping the candidate's economic plans. He sparked controversy in March after he met with Canadian officials. A leaked memo suggested Gooslbee played down Obama's opposition to NAFTA. The Obama campaign said the memo was inaccurate.

* JASON FURMAN - Furman is Obama's top campaign staff aide on economic policy. He was hired shortly after Obama clinched the Democratic nomination on June 3. Furman was an aide in the Clinton White House and is a close associate of former Treasury Secretary Rubin through their work together on the Hamilton Project, a centrist research organization that promotes policies like free trade and fiscal discipline. Furman's reputation as a backer of free trade has concerned some of Obama's union supporters.

* DAN TARULLO - A professor at Georgetown University Law school, Tarullo is an expert on trade and international economics. He was a senior White House aide to Clinton and served as a "sherpa" to meetings of the Group of Eight industrialized economy meetings. In a June 9 CNN interview, Tarullo said Obama supports free trade but "he's not for trade policies that don't protect American workers."

* LAURA TYSON - Tyson the former chairwoman of Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers and also served as his director of the National Economic Council. She is now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and has only recently been tapped as a key adviser to Obama.

* PAUL VOLCKER - The former Federal Reserve chairman became a formidable figure in the financial world during the 1980s and is credited with breaking the back of double-digit inflation that marked the early part of the decade. He endorsed Obama in January and attended a March speech the Illinois senator gave in New York in which he called for an overhaul of U.S. financial regulations.

* JARED BERNSTEIN - Bernstein, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, has written about income inequality and labor markets. His latest book is "Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed? (And Other Unsolved Economic Mysteries)." He has called for increased bargaining power for workers.

* ROBERT REICH - Reich was Labor Secretary under Clinton and was seen as a more liberal counterweight to Robert Rubin. He teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.

* PETER HENRY - An expert on emerging markets and the global economy, Henry teaches at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business./blockquote>

Typical Atwater/Rove style political

I'm sorry, of all the people that Obama knows through his dealings on committees in the Senate and in his political life WHO were also involved in some way with Fannie, Freddie or AIG, I find it too coincidental that McCain's spinmeisters chose this man. He happens to be Black. Hmmm...me thinks I smell subliminal racism. Didn't he spend the last 3 weeks talking about conceived sexism about Palin because of ASSOCIATIONS made by Obama's camp? It strikes me as he should be the last one connecting dots between a candidate and his "associates". Before this ad I wasn't in favor of Obama bringing up the Keating Five issue but I think it's time.

Keating isn't a big attack point since McCain was A]Cleared by the Ethics Committee and B]It was basically the launch of his Maverick brand.

According to Wiki he was included only because the group wanted a Republican in the snare, and the GOP countered with including John Glenn due to McCain's inclusion.

Obama and Biden both waxed poetic about John Glenn when they had a rally in Ohio, so I might presume that they might not attack with the Keating Five on the grounds it would have certain Glenn/Ohio blowback.

Scary, scary black men!

This is another dishonorable ad brought to us by the McCain campaign.

" . . . shouldn't be throwing stones from his seven glass houses"

Excellent line!

I saw the surge ad but people do not give a flying f*ck about the surge.

It's the economy, stupid!!!

1st mccain camp got no other option but 2 use barack race as an answer,but they don't know how so whut they do instead they talk about britney spears and paris hilton eg(rep.harold ford-TENN)lipstick on a pig and blackberry phones instead of real issues,also the GOP's own the media,and whut the media do,they go and interview white racist uneducated rural people in W.VA,pennsylvania,ohio and kentucky,Barack is a muslim,how tha fuck is he a muslim when I seen this man ate scrambled eggs and cheese wit pork bacon and pancakes,also to all the smart bloogers on TPM do not respond back to anything that DEMBILL C say,if u respond back to him he actually wins the battle so whut u do is kill him in the nice nasty and tell him to have a nice day or just ignore him.

McCain't is a lying mfing c***sucker. I hope he shits his pants during the first debates.

The McCain Camp is desperately hoping somebody jumps up and calls "racist" because they are getting slaughtered with the focus on the economy.

As it is, the National Security/Foreign Policy debate next week is a life preserver for McCain even if it is a week from tomorrow. Obama needs to keep pressing on the Economy.

What Obama absolutely should do is tie Foreign Policy to the Economy during the debate.

I think, right before the debates start, Obama should make a joke and suggest McCain swear on the bible to tell the truth during the debates. It would be fun to watch McCain turn from ghost white to red, then purple then maroon or something.

This whole campaign is just making me sad. Just call me stupid, but I had no idea how racist this country is. In an odd way, White Supremists don't even bother me. It is all the "nice" white folks in their nice middle America towns.

Excuse me while I go puke.

This is definitely an attempt to foster the "he'll give black radicals jobs!" fears. They want people to think that back at Chicago HQ, the Obama campaign is staffed with a bunch of Black Panthers, Nation of Islam members, Bloods, Crips, and Jew-Haters. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. If you look at Obama's team, you know that it's mostly a bunch of white men and women, a good number of whom are Jewish. If you read Ryan Lizza's piece on Obama's rise in The New Yorker - hardly a flattering piece on Obama - you'll realize that Obama didn't rise through the ranks of the black radical movement nor was he mentored by a bunch of old, black, machine politicians. In fact, the opposite was true - it was those people he had to defeat and/or win over during his climb up the ladder in Chicago/Illinois politics.

They want people to think that Obama is just a more refined version of Al Sharpton. That's the intent here. And as I've noted earlier, there are plenty of people who a) are not really racist, b) kind of like Obama, but c) hold on to an irrational concern that if elected, Obama might fill his cabinet with radicals and give a bunch of handouts to minorities.

Now, Franklin Raines is hardly a black radical. But as noted above, nobody knows who the guy is anyway. He's just another shady, black politician. They used him because a) he does have some connection to recent events and b) he's not Jeremiah Wright. (need to save that one up for the last week of October)

my tpm members, i urge all of you to ignore the obvious racial undertone of this ad....i have been a proud and very vocal opponent of the racial innuendos and we all have learned first hand how a comment made by an insignifant commenter such as myself will be used to smear obama....look no further than intelligent people such as desi and djamo among others who charge obama with the race card when in fact there is no documented instances where he or his team accused the clintons of this....we have said it here, some AA's, including some prominent ones called it, but Obama and his team have always ignored or discouraged that label..if smart individuals on this board carelessly use that lie to score points against obama, imagine what will happen when those who are already racially motivated will think! this will be one more excuse to saddle obama with something he strongly downplays even though we all know it has been going on forever and will continue beyond this election!!!

obama please come back hard with a fact-biting ad.....i am steering clear of the racist charge for fear of unfair backlash towards the O team..they are on fire and i want them to keep the fire burning!!!