As the right wing extremists continue to try and paint this McCain lobbyist story as about sex when it is clear that even the Washington Post realizes that it is about the “anti-lobbyist’s” surrounding himself with lobbyists.
Meaning his trustworthyness, his double talk, his lack of character, his lack of, well, credibility.
This is the story. This what John McLobbyist is all about. As Red Wind says, he has the “straightest talk that money can buy”. But it is more than just lobbyists.
The recent news about Rick Renzi, Arizona Congressman being indicted on land deals and other charges is telling on a few levels. You see, Renzi was, up until around noon today, a member of John McCain’s campaign leadership team (a co-chair, nonetheless). Interestingly, it appears as though Renzi either resigned from the leadership team or was booted from the leadership team right around the time his indictment was announced because Renzi’s name is no longer listed on McLobbyist’s website.
But what about the lobbyists and special interests that he “never did a favor for or gave preferential treatment to”? Of course, there was the matter of Charles Keating and McLobbyist’s (not to mention Cindy McLobbyist’s) special relationship with him. There is also the little matter of McCain gave a deposition where he admitted to giving preferential treatment to a lobbyist
Just hours after the Times’s story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff–and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. “No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC,” the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.
But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. “I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue,” McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. “He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint.”
And there is Rick Davis, lobbyist and campaign manager as well as McLobbyist’s chief political advisor, Charles Black, Jr. However, Black and Davis aren’t just any lobbyist though. According to the WaPo article:
But when McCain huddled with his closest advisers at his rustic Arizona cabin last weekend to map out his presidential campaign, virtually every one was part of the Washington lobbying culture he has long decried. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, co-founded a lobbying firm whose clients have included Verizon and SBC Telecommunications. His chief political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., is chairman of one of Washington’s lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T, Alcoa, JPMorgan and U.S. Airways.
Senior advisers Steve Schmidt and Mark McKinnon work for firms that have lobbied for Land O’ Lakes, UST Public Affairs, Dell and Fannie Mae.
A real good summary is in Salon.com by Joe Conason, which also outlines the phoniness that is the “reformer” meme. In fact, McLobbyist’s campaign team has the most lobbyists on its staff, and he has always surrounded himself with lobbyists. This is leadership? This is “change”? Is this the kind of experience that McLobbyist is going to bring to his administration? After Cheney’s secret energy team including corporate interests, do we really need telecommunication lobbyists and other corporate lobbyists dominating the policy direction in this country? Do we want someone who has taken over $100,000 from Charles Keating, written letters on behalf of lobbyists after receiving over $20,000 in contributions and surrounding himself with indicted criminals, corporate interests and lobbyists who are looking to line their pockets instead of helping Americans?
Many of you know the old saying about how you can tell a person’s character by the company they keep. Based on who has supported John McLobbyist throughout his Congressional career, as well as the people who make up the inner circle of his campaign, not to mention the ones who he relies on for advice, it is very easy to tell what his character is.
This is not a man who cares about this country. Rather, it is more evidence in a long string of evidence which begins with leaving his first wife after she raised his children for an heiress, runs through the same people who finance his campaigns and advise him.
It is a man who cares only about himself, and about those who pay his way.
Maybe you need to apply for a job at the NYT!
There was plenty out there that could have supported their story, or been the story for that matter, without delving into gossip. The latter undermined their case which I believe is quite strong: Mc Cain is and has always been in bed (oops, no pun intended) with lobbyists.
Or eye-a-nee as we used to say in Brooklyn.
Republicans kept saying the Clinton episode wasn’t about the sex, it was about the lying. Now, with McCain, it seems we should concentrate on the sex after all.
Going negative against this man will not work well, if not hurt the Democratic campaign. He is Bob Dole redux, he should be treated respectfully, but not reverently and he will simply go away.
disagree. This is not “going negative”. This is accurately depicting him and his connections.
The lie that is “maverick” and “reformer” being deflated is hardly going negative.
But have fun being respectful. Look at what it did the past 7 years.
How’d this work out so far? There’s no golden rule against going negative. It’s just that you have to be aware of the way people will react in any given specific circumstance.
‘No one could have predicted a NYT hatchet-job would rally the Repugs around their candidate..’
He is an old man who has served his country ‘well’, but too long to have the stuff anymore to be president. If he served two terms he’d be Castro old.
Play nice and the White house is on a silver platter. Get mean and the repugs will wake up and actually vote come November.
no need to go negative. McCain has other problems – funding problems that could land him in the rebar hotel for 5 years.
Lucky for McCain, the FEC is missing a quorum – 4 Commissioners waiting to be appointed. Did he break the rules?
TPM has the goods on McCain’s Money woes with public financing
Rebar hotel.
Very clever.
says the man,
Reuters: He’s untroubled by campaign-finance letter
ya know, imo this will stain way into October. Pardon the pun, this story sure has more than just 2 legs.
FEC
Isikoff
Vicki
Paxson
Oh, my.
Going negative often works quite well, which is why President Kerry isn’t running for reelection. The objective in attacking McCain isn’t to get Republican voters to cross the aisle and vote for Obama, it’s to get them to stay home altogether. An even marginally smaller GOP turnout in either of the last two elections would have produced Bush defeats.
McCain really only has two selling points to GOP voters: he’s not a Democrat, and he has an undeserved reputation for integrity. There’s not much we can do for the former, but we can demolish the latter.
Kerry has himself to blame. He flip-flopped and was slow on defending himself from the swift boaters… Ran a real lousy campaign. What kind of message is
‘hope is on the way’ without delivery or fleshing out the vision?
the NYT article has served to unite the ultra right types to defend a guy they dislike.
Apparently, there are reports today that McCain has given a deposition five years ago (in campaign finance reform litigation) where he says that he was contacted by the person who he is now denying that he had any contact with (based on his recent “I did not have sex or do favors for that lobbyist” press conference in response to the NYT’s story). It is, according to unidentified sources, a fairly damning contradiction on the issue.
Can he still lose the Republican nomination? Is it even possible? Because this is starting to look like he is going to come out of this one as extremely damaged goods.
True to form a story on John McCain has almost as many highlighted green links in it as not. Looks like the NYT piece was the last piece of mud holding back the McCain dam and even Isikoff can’t type fast enough now to keep up. All this and Rove hasn’t even dusted off his research files.
Seriously, the Rep had 7 years knowing they weren’t going to have a VP running and these guys are the best their genius’ could come up with?
Do we know that?
Half the Republican candidates would have gladly taken Cheney on as running mate, and whomever they end up with still might, especially if they are in it for the glory rather than the work of running the country.
Prying Cheney out of the bunker under the Naval Observatory is going to take more than an election!
New visual. McCain standing at the podium, beaten down by the onslaught of continuous corruption charges; flanked by Boehner & Delay & forced to suspend his broke/n campaign and endorse Mitt Romney. Mitt’s unsuspended campaign is of course now also broke/n so they turn to Bay Buchanan to offer up their new and improved platform (Bay of course can talk for 10 minutes straight without taking a breath so there will be no worries about answering questions)