Leading up to tonight's second Presidential debate, the residue from the recent attacks from both the Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama camps invoking the names of Bill Ayers, the 60's Weatherman Underground radical, and Charles Keating, the disgraced owner of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Bank, may trump the main issue of voter concern, the collapsed economy.

When McCain's Vice Presidential running mate Gov. Sarah Palin spoke this past Sunday took shots at Obama's past association with the former radical Ayers, the Obama camp waisted no time in firing back with a 13 minute video documentary of McCain's role in the S&L scandal involving Keating. The case, infamously known as, the Keating 5 case.

The main difference between the two charges is that the Obama charge has proven to have more resonance. The reason being that the Keating documentary Obama released on Monday came during a day when the Markets further collapsed with a massive plunge of the DOW which fell bellow 10,000 for the first time since 2001. Not to mention that there was a Congressional hearing taking place during the release of the Obama bombshell video.
What the net result of all of this resulted in was an across the board plunge in all the leading polls nationwide for McCain. This is sending the McCain supporters into overdrive, or Palin calls it the "heels on, gloves off" strategy. Obama's supporters are making it clear that they are not allowing that strategy to distract their message of the economy over smear.

While Palin's dive into Obama's character over her description of Obama's connection to Ayers, It's obvious that Obama's camp took plenty of time preparing the documentary that they released. Apparently they were waiting for McCain to open the door for them to release their secret weapon of mass media.

While the video was released, the Congressional Oversight Committee grilled former Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld who is estimated to have walked away from his embattled company with an estimated 484 million dollars, according to the Baltimore Sun. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said "I don't know how he sleeps at night."

The calamity of the markets has created a strange correlation between this current crisis and the Keating 5 scandal. CNN did a fact check and determined that while Palin's claims against Obama have been discounted, Obama's documentary was credited as being factual. That should make tonight's debate very interesting, especially since it is a town hall formatted affair.