McCain's Campaign Is Filled To The Gills With Lobbyists

[Me.]

McCain's Closest Advisers Mostly Lobbyists

“W]hen 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, JP Morgan and U.S. Airways.

Senior advisers Steve Schmidt and Mark McKinnon work for firms that have lobbied for Land O Lakes, the UST Public Affairs, Dell and Fannie Mae. <...>

In McCain's case, the fact that lobbyists are essentially running his presidential campaign -- most of them as volunteers -- seems to some people to be at odds with his anti-lobbying rhetoric. "He has a closer relationship with lobbyists than he lets on," said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "The problem for McCain being so closely associated with lobbyists is that he's the candidate most closely associated with attacking lobbyists."

Public Citizen, a group that monitors campaign fundraising, has found that McCain had more bundlers -- people who gather checks from networks of friends and associates -- from the lobbying community than any other presidential candidate from either party.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/20/john-mccain-affair-links_n_87690.html

[ProgressiveEconomist]

1. K&R(#4). Does anybody have any photos of McCain with these folks? IMO it would

be great to have a photo of McCain surrounded by these folks, with cartoon balloons of their corporate clients pointing at each "volunteer".

Because lobbyists must register and file annual reports, you can get comprehensive year-by-year lists of --

(1) corporate clients' names,
(2) their issues, and
(3) how much they paid a lobbyist in a given year to twist arms and seduce Congresspeople and Senators on a given issue --

by plugging lobbyists' names into the search form at http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/search.asp

[L. Coyote]

6. Check out McCain's campaign contributors = $111 million

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/allsummary.asp?CID=N00006424

1989-2008 Total Receipts: $111,808,625
1989-2008 Total Spent: $108,951,198
Debts: $335,018
Date of last report: December 31, 2007

Top Contributors
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/allcontrib.asp?CID=N00006424

4  	AT&T Inc  	$181,900
5  	Blank Rome LLP  	$147,500
7  	Greenberg Traurig  	$129,587
13  	Verizon Communications  	$90,750

================
Anyone recognize #7 ??

[blondeatlast]

14. Greenberg Traurig: Gosh, they wouldn't expect any favors... Link to their site:

Law firm that "protects" businesses from "sudden changes..."--Hmm--like possible REGULATION?

http://www.gtlaw.com/home.aspx

[unblock]

2. so what's wrong with this?

remember, in the republican world, lobbyists and corporations are "constituents", and citizens are "special interests".

[ProgressiveEconomist]

3. Don't you wonder whether the "volunteers" WANT something from McCain?

Something that might benefit a big-money client and earn the volunteer mucho dinero for delivering the goods?

If you're at all suspicious, you can go to the OpenSecrets search link I provided in post #1. For example, I went there and selected "individual Lobbyist" in the "Search names" pull-down menu. To check out McCain's current and 8-years-ago campaign manager Rick Davis, I typed "Davis" into the blank and got 114 hits!!!

I clicked on "Davis, Richard H." and got the list of career clients below.

If you click on a client's name at the link at the end of this post, you can "View Report Images" to see just how much the client paid Davis's firm for "work" on each issue of interest to a client in a given year. Notice how many of Davis's biggest-paying clients are in the telecommunications industry. McCain is former chair and high-ranking voting member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the FCC and Telcom legislation.

Do you think this is coincidental? Try repeating what I've done for Davis with the names of the other "volunteers" from the lead-in and see how many clients are in the telcom industry or other industries where McCain has power and influence.

I wonder whether some of these "volunteers" are charging clients tens of thousands of dollars for the time they spend "volunteering" for McCain, even before McCain delivers the votes ane FCC letters these clients want.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS
Lobbying Spending Database: Davis, Richard H, a
Davis, Richard H
Career Client List, 1998 - 2006

Client
BellSouth Corp
Deutsche Post
DHL Holdings USA
GTECH Holdings Corp
Imagesat International
Omni Computer Products
Preserve Luke Afb
SBC Communications
Verizon Communications
Source: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/lobbyist.asp?txtname=Davis%2C+Richard+H&year=a&txttype=l

[unblock]

7. i don't wonder. i know.

politics is a business for republicans. corporations go to lobbyists to purchase legislation that will turn a profit for them. duh.

what are you, a democrat or something?

;)

[mcg]

12. Charles R. Black, Jr., Chairman of BKSH & Associates, McCain's chief political adviser

from SourceWatch, regarding Charles R. Black, Jr., chief political adviser to John McCain...

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Charles_R._Black%2C_Jr.

Charles R. "Charlie" Black, Jr., Chairman of BKSH & Associates

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=BKSH_%26_Associates

BKSH & Associates is "a Washington-based bipartisan firm providing government relations services to a select number of domestic and international clients. The firm, a part of the Burson-Marsteller family, is led by Charles R. Black, Jr., who is best known as one of America's leading Republican political strategists, having served as senior advisor to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and as a spokesman for the Republican Party. The firm's lobbyists, lawyers, communications professionals, foreign affairs specialists and researchers design and execute programs to help shape public policy. Clients include Fortune 100 companies, multinationals, small and mid-sized companies, trade and industry associations, foreign governments, state governments and municipalities." ...

BKSH & Associates has 90 clients including:

* Government of Colombia
* His Excellency Ibrahim Saminu Turaki, Governor Jigawa State, Nigeria
* Agency for Humanitarian Technologies
* Blackwater USA
* General Electric
* General Motors Corporation
* Government of Haiti
* Government of Greece
* Iraqi National Congress and its head Ahmad Chalabi
* Radio Sedaye Iran (Radio Voice of Iran)
* U.S. Chamber of Commerce - on tort reform
* YukosSibneft Oil Company (a.k.a. Yukos Oil)
* Values First

McCain is being "advised" by Black, who serves big business and foreign governments.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

15. But which clients paid Black the most? AT&T was by far the biggest-money

client of BKSH Associates in 2007 (see
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/firmsum.asp?txtname=BKSH+%26+Assoc&year=2007 ),
a year when AT&T spent $9.6 million overall on lobbying.

And McCain is one of the most powerful players in Congress when it comes to AT&T's business.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. I can well imagine he's an easy target. They all know all they have

to do is find some ambitious blond to yank his Charlie and they're home free.

[blondeatlast]

5. "For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk "

That was the title--and the point that got glossed over by the "sexy" of the Times article.

Read the last page of the article--Mccain could not see that being flown by a Keating private jet to a meeting with Keating could possibly mean Keating expected soemthing from hiim. That's from McCain's own "auto"biography, not the NYT.

He continues to think that playing naive works and that because he's so convinced he's a maverick and a DC outsider, everyone else should too.

the man is dumb as a shoe and has NO business being President because of it.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

8. "the man is as dumb as a shoe and has NO business being President"

IMO you've hit on themes that Democrats who take the "low road" this fall will hit hard.

MSNBC ran documentary campaign bios of McCain, Obama, and Hillary this week (and may repeat them this weekend). From McCain's bio, I geaned these tidbits--

--He was at the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy, thoght not quite "Anchor Man"
(Compare Obama, who made Harvard Law Review and taught Constitutional Law at the
University of Chicago).

--His Vietnamese captors only delivered him from a deathbed cell and treated long-festering wounds at a hospital when they realized he was the son of a powerful member of the Navy Brass.

--He was quite the ladies' man before he got shot down in 'Nam. After he got home, his first marriage broke up because he could not control himself and had repeated extramarital affairs.

Substitute cocaine for bimbos and cowardice for bravery and you've got a George W. Bush clone, a legacy who's dumb as a post.

[blondeatlast]

10. "More of the same with McCain." The decidely RW slanted media here

(first the Quayle family, then Gannett and Fox) have managed to protect him from the worst of the sleaze and stupidity, but the ruumors of affairs, dirty money--and his nagging insistence on playing naive when he's cought--are catching up.

Cindy and he used each other and rumors are she looks the other way because she wants to be FL so badly.

I think most of us missed the real money in the NYT story--he's so convinced he's morally perfect he can't see a bullet train heading toward him. He got lucky with Keating and the coer-up of his wife's fraud charity for drugs thing--but that was local (but some of us remember how he used the county attorney to destroy the whistleblower as if it was yesterday).

He's not ready for this one--and I can't wait to watch the fall. I've known it was coming for over a decade and it promises to be spectacular. :popcorn:

[Me.]

9. The Times Will Be Online This Afternoon

I hope that during the answering questions sessions they get to the heart of his hypocritical lobbyist double talk

[blondeatlast]

11. That's the core of this. The biggest money donors aren't DC outsider citizens--

they are the likes of AT&T and Big Oil and Pharma.

Maverick? Yeah, like My Little Pony is a maverick.

[mcg]

13. "Many McCain Advisers Also Lobbyists"

http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-mccainside0222.artfeb22,0,5499512.story

Many McCain Advisers Also Lobbyists
Candidate's Rhetoric Seemingly At Odds With Their Role In His Campaign

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR And JEFFREY H. BIRNBAUM | Washington Post, February 22, 2008

WASHINGTON — - For years, Sen. John McCain has railed against lobbyists and the influence of "special interests" in Washington, touting on his campaign website his fight against "the 'revolving door' by which lawmakers and other influential officials leave their posts and become lobbyists for the special interests they have aided."

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, JP Morgan and U.S. Airways.

Senior advisers Steve Schmidt and Mark McKinnon work for firms that have lobbied for Land O' Lakes, the UST Public Affairs, Dell and Fannie Mae.

[blondeatlast]

17. That isn't possible--he's a DC maverick! This is the kind of thing the MSM SHOULD

be looking into.

You've done lots of great work already--is anyone paying attention?

[Me.]

18. I Second That

Very good articles

[mcg]

16. "McCain's Lobbyist Friends Rally 'Round Their Man"

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4210251&page=1

McCain's Lobbyist Friends Rally 'Round Their Man
Group: Campaign Finance Reformer Has the Most Lobbyists Raising Campaign Money
By AVNI PATEL and JOANNA JENNINGS, Jan. 29, 2008

Washington lobbyists and members of Congress gathered at a popular Capitol Hill bar and restaurant last night to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, whose staff refused to disclose exactly how much was raised or by whom.

"Like most campaigns, we do not release numbers of attendees or dollars raised per event," said McCain spokesperson B.J. Boling.

While McCain did not attend the event, a copy of the invitation obtained by ABCNews.com shows that donors who paid between $1,000 and $2,300 were invited to rub elbows with some of the 32 members of Congress supporting McCain for a reception at the Charlie Palmer Steakhouse. Donors who raised at least $10,000 were designated co-chairmen for the event and were treated to a "VIP Roundtable" before the main reception. The invitation lists 24 lobbyists as "co-chairman" for the event. The lobbyists represent a range of industries, including the finance, telecommunications, technology and healthcare sectors.

McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates, according to the latest finding from government watchdog group Public Citizen. The group, which advocates for public financing of elections, has identified more than 2,300 well-connected individuals, known as "bundlers," who have solicited contributions from friends and associates on behalf of a presidential candidate. ...

[blondeatlast]

19. Kick for a great discussion and mcg's research. I need to leave for a while. nt

[indie_voter]

20. Why did the press let him get away with this quote?

An angry and defiant McCain denounced the stories yesterday, declaring: "At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/21/AR2008022101131.html?hpid=topnews

Honestly.

HELLO?!!!! Keating 5?

[Me.]

22. They Always Give The Cons A Pass

Look at the last 8 years

[indie_voter]

24. touche! n/t

[katty]

21. mac swimming in a sea of lobbyists-nothing new

[Me.]

23. Another McCain Lovely

“GOP Arizona Rep. Rick Renzi -- the co-chairman of Sen. John McCain's campaign in Arizona -- has been indicted this morning:

Republican Rep. Rick Renzi (REN-zee) has been indicted for extortion, wire fraud, money laundering and other charges related to a land deal in Arizona.

A 26-page federal indictment unsealed in Arizona accuses Renzi and two former business partners of conspiring to promote the sale of land that buyers could swap for property owned by the federal government. The sale netted one of Renzi's former partners $4.5 million.

Renzi is a three-term member of the House. He announced in August that he would not seek re-election.

Today's indictment comes after a lengthy federal investigation into the land developing and insurance businesses owned by Renzi's family.”


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/22/rick-renzi-indicted-mcca_n_87974.html