Barack Obama doesn’t object to ally’s comment on John McCain, Keating Five

As he closes in on the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, who has staked much of his campaign on changing the tenor of American politics, signaled that he had no objection to having voters reminded that the presumptive Republican nominee had admitted to a serious ethical breach.

Also on Saturday, Obama surpassed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in superdelegates, with 275 to her 271.5, according to the Associated Press. He has long held the lead in pledged delegates and is increasingly setting his sights on the general election.

At the end of a two-day trip through Oregon, Obama was asked Saturday morning about whether it was fair for one of his supporters, Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), to have invoked McCain’s role in a nearly 20-year-old scandal when he introduced Obama at a University of Oregon rally Friday night.

DeFazio had said: McCain “says we need less regulation. Hello! Wall Street mortgage meltdown, Bear Stearns taxpayer bailout, Enron, but, you know, I guess maybe for a guy who was up to his neck in the Keating Five and savings-and-loan scandal, less regulation is better.”

DeFazio was referring to McCain being one of the five senators disciplined for improperly trying to influence federal regulators in the late 1980s scandal. McCain has called it “the worst mistake of my life.”

In comments after touring a Bend manufacturer of solar energy equipment, Obama slightly distanced himself from Friday’s remark – “Rep. DeFazio obviously delivered a speech that wasn’t my speech” – but made it clear he considered McCain’s past to be fair game.

“John McCain’s public record about issues that he’s apologized for and written about,” said Obama, “is germane to the presidency… . I can’t quarrel with the American people wanting to know more about that.”

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responded: “If Barack Obama doesn’t have the strength to stand up to his own standards, how is he going to stand up for hardworking Americans who need a strengthened economy?”

On the subject of McCain’s proposed summer “gas tax holiday” – an idea also supported by Clinton – Obama suggested McCain was being hypocritical. Many economists do not support the plan, saying it would save consumers little money and potentially give oil companies larger profits.

“He has a straight-talker image,” said Obama, “but it’s not clear that lately he’s been following through. This gas tax holiday was a pander. He simply threw it out there thinking that it might help him get some votes.”

Obama ended his Oregon visit with a rally of about 8,000 at a Bend high school, where he was introduced by Myrlie Evers-Williams, the 75-year-old widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

Oregon’s primary is May 20. So is Kentucky’s; first, though, is West Virginia’s, on Tuesday.

The subject of a running mate surfaced briefly, when Obama was asked about a Chicago Sun-Times piece Saturday in which conservative columnist Robert Novak wrote that Obama’s wife, Michelle, had nixed the idea of Clinton as Obama’s running mate.

“My wife,” Obama said dryly, “does not talk to Bob Novak on a regular basis.”

Obama will spend Mother’s Day in Chicago with his family, but does not plan to attend services at his church. Alluding to the recent storm over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Obama told reporters, “I am not going to burden the church at the moment with my presence and as a consequence, your presence.”

 robin.abcarian@latimes.com