Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama, after attacks on his character and past associations, is hitting back by highlighting John McCain's ties to the ``Keating Five'' savings-and-loan scandal that embroiled the Republican presidential nominee in the 1980s.

David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, e-mailed millions of supporters on Oct. 5 directing them to a new Web site, keatingeconomics.com, dedicated to McCain's ties to the scandal. It features a 30-second Web advertisement and beginning at noon Washington time the site will also host a 13-minute documentary called ``Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis'' produced by the campaign.

``The McCain campaign has tried to avoid talking about the scandal, but with so many parallels to the current crisis, McCain's Keating history is relevant and voters deserve to know the facts -- and see for themselves the pattern of poor judgment by John McCain,'' Plouffe wrote.

With less than a month before election day and Obama's poll numbers rising amid the financial meltdown, the Democratic presidential candidate is hoping to link McCain's approach to the current financial crisis with his role in the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s. The attacks come as McCain's campaign said last week it would divert attention from the economy to focus on Obama's character.

Associations Questioned

Over the weekend, McCain's running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, repeatedly linked the Democratic presidential candidate with a domestic terrorist group from the 1970s, telling supporters Obama used to ``pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country,'' a reference to his acquaintance with Bill Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground group that carried out a series of bombings in the early 1970s. Obama served on a charity board with Ayers and has denounced the bombings.

Obama ``is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country,'' Palin, 44, told donors at a fundraiser Oct. 4 in Costa Mesa, California. ``This, ladies and gentleman, is not the kind of change that I think we should be believing in.''

McCain adviser Greg Strimple said last week that they were ``looking for a very aggressive last 30 days.''

``We're looking to turning the page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's liberal, aggressively liberal, record and how he will be too risky for the Americans,'' Strimple told reporters on an Oct. 2 conference call.

Potentially Risky Strategy

The strategy of invoking the Keating Five scandal may prove risky, as Obama's candidacy has been built around a message of hope with the promise of a different kind of politics. Just yesterday, in response to Palin's attacks, Obama said he would ``keep on talking about the issues that matter,'' pledging to focus on the economy, health care, education and energy.

Still, Obama's advisers say McCain was the first to launch guilt-by-association attacks, and because of the relevance of the Keating Five to today's financial crisis, such attacks cut sharply against the Republican presidential candidate.

``The Keating Five involved all the things that have brought the modern crisis,'' William Black, a former deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp., says in the video. ``Senator McCain has not learned the lessons and has continued to follow policies that are going to produce a disaster.''

McCain Campaign Response

The McCain campaign responded by calling Obama dishonest.

``The difference here is clear: John McCain has been open and honest about the Keating matter, and even the Democratic special counsel in charge recommended that Senator McCain be completely exonerated,'' McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said. ``By contrast, Barack Obama has been fundamentally dishonest about his friendship and work with the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers, whose radical group bombed the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.''

Obama has opened up a lead over McCain, 72, in the aftermath of their first debate Sept. 26 as the economy deteriorates.

Earlier in September, a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll showed more respondents said Obama would do a better job handling the financial crisis than McCain, and almost half said they believed Obama had better ideas to strengthen the economy than his rival.

During his first Senate term, Arizona senator McCain and four Democrats faced accusations of improperly intervening with federal regulators on behalf of former savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating in the 1980s savings-and-loan industry collapse. The five senators took contributions from the Arizona businessman and while the Senate Ethics Committee reprimanded McCain, it cleared him of wrongdoing.

Ethics Committee Finding

The Senate Ethics Committee, chaired by the late Alabama Democrat Howell Heflin, ultimately found that McCain had ``exercised poor judgment.'' Since then McCain has worked to reach across the aisle on legislation to strengthen ethics rules and on other issues such as immigration, where he formed an alliance with Massachusetts Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

``The point of the film and the Web site is that John McCain still hasn't learned his lesson,'' Plouffe wrote. ``And this time, McCain's bankrupt economic philosophy has put our economy at the brink of collapse and put millions of Americans at risk of losing their homes.''

While this is the first time Obama's campaign has brought up the Keating Five scandal, Obama was asked about it at a May 10 press conference in South Bend, Oregon.

Obama said he had been asked about ``a whole host of issues and associations that were a lot more flimsy than John McCain's relationship to Keating Five and what I have said is that I cannot quarrel with the American people wanting to know more about that.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Julianna Goldman in Asheville, North Carolina at

jgoldman6@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 6, 2008 02:16 EDT