Matthew Yglesias » Davis and Fannie

Sep 22nd, 2008 at 9:31 am

Davis and Fannie

A lot of us had the idea that John McCain was vastly overstating the role that Fannie Mae played in creating the current financial mess out of political opportunism as Fannie’s been a kind of weird business that, unlike most other large firms, has generally had closer ties to Democrats than to Republicans. But then you read something like this:

Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

Given that, maybe McCain has double super-secret inside information gleaned straight from the mouth of a top GSE lobbyist.

Comments
19

Filed under: Hypocrisy, Lobbying, mccain

19 Responses to “Davis and Fannie”

DTM Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:43 am
From what I understand, it remains true that “Frannie” (as the cool kids in banking are now calling them) actually didn’t play an important causal role in all this. The “scandal”, rather, was that people warned the public would likely end up bailing out Frannie for a large price tag if something went wrong, which proved to be a correct prediction. In some sense, though, this “scandal” has been mooted by the Paulson Plan, since now everyone in the mortgage game is anticipating getting bailed out.
DTM Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:45 am
Oh, but it is indeed ludicrous for McCain to attack Obama for Obama’s nominal ties to people involved with Frannie, and I think it is fair to use this as an example of McCain being a poster boy for deregulation.
Rich Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:48 am
That picture is your visual–there’s your ad. So long as there’s no picture of Obama and Raines, Obama wins.
Jake Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:00 am
One really has to wonder what McCain was thinking in pushing the wafer-thin Obama-Raines connection.

I caught his interview with Meredith Viera this AM on the teevee. It was ugly. She pressed him pretty hard on a lot of things. He is not doing well with all of this.
bdbd Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:14 am
I’ll bet the GSE’s are peeved that they paid Davis so much money for so long, and McCain still mumbled stupid nonsense when the opportunity arose. With the money they paid Davis they’d have been better off buying a few more CDOs or something.

As to what McCain was thinking with the Obama Raines thing, I thought for once SNL managed to capture something
Matthew Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:17 am
If tomorrow we find out there is a company that presses small, cute children through a fine mesh screen to liquefy them for fun and profit, Rick Davis will have lobbied on their behalf for a large sum of money.

http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
Comment Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:17 am
So Rick Davis is getting 360,000 a year for five years?

That’s more than Al gore’s net worth in 2000.
kafka Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
A study done by the Fed concluded the only ones who’ve really benefited from Fannie and Freddie (aka Franron) are its executives and investors. Link:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4185/is_20040109/ai_n10178046

Anyone surprised? These 2 bloated pigs showered money on D.C. pols, turning Congress into their own private whore house.
DougEFresh Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:10 pm
While it is more than likely that McCain is overstating the role of Fannie Mae, all sides are overstating the role of every single development over the past 25 years with respect to the collapse.

However, it is inaccurate to say that McCain was anti-regulation when it came to Fannie Mae, he did attempt reform some three years ago

I am not saying that his proposal would have prevented, lessened or solved the crisis, just pointing out that his intent to regulate them is not a recent invention.

From what I have read, Obama has received far more money from Fannie related contributors than McCain, does this make Obama a posterchild for deregulation?
AndrewBW Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Oh Matt, you are so naive. The truth is The Democrats Created the Financial Crisis, courtesy of Kevin Hassett, of “Dow 36,000″ fame.
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Matt Yglesias

Davis and Fannie

19 Responses to “Davis and Fannie”

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