Thread: DNC using McCain Scandal to attack him.

It's like 1989 all over again -- John McCain has been caught in yet another ethics scandal.

If you had a TV on yesterday, you saw who jumped to his defense -- the team of lobbyists who work for him, led by campaign manager and lobbyist Rick Davis, and the well-oiled right-wing noise machine, led by Rush Limbaugh. In an ironic message to McCain supporters yesterday, lobbyist Davis wrote...

[John McCain] has led the charge to limit the money and influence of the special interests in politics and stomp out corruption.

They spent the day breathlessly assailing the New York Times as "liberal," ignoring the ethics lapses the team of reporters had uncovered. The fact is, John McCain is facing legitimate questions about lobbyists, favors, and campaign contributions, just as he did during the Keating Five scandal that nearly derailed his political career twenty years ago.

Seeing more dollar signs, the McCain campaign and the RNC decided to jump at the chance to take advantage of the distraction they had created to raise money. They had spent the day firing their supporters up, trying desperately to change the subject, and then they literally cashed in on it. It was textbook sleaze.

So, let's hit back.

Don't let John McCain's team of lobbyists, Rush Limbaugh and the right-wing noise machine, the RNC and their special-interest backers take advantage of John McCain's most recent ethics scandal -- it's disgusting, and we can't let them get ahead like this. They're screaming as loud as they can, and you can send a message right back:

http://www.democrats.org/McCainEthics

You and I know the truth. We know that John McCain is no maverick; he's no reformer. He promises the same ethics that have defined Washington and the Republican Party for far too long.

Just read what the Washington Post had to say today about John McCain's campaign operatives...
For years, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has railed against lobbyists and the influence of "special interests" in Washington, touting on his campaign Web site 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.
The facts are clear: from Keating Five to today, throughout his 25 years in Washington John McCain has consistently taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from his special interest friends, flown on their corporate jets, and then turned around and tried to do favors for them. And he's surrounded himself with just the type of people he claims to fight against -- including Rick Davis, Charlie Black, and senior advisers Steve Schmidt and Mark McKinnon.

McCain and the right-wing noise machine will do anything and say anything to win. Turning an ethics scandal into a fundraising opportunity is just the start, and exactly what you'd expect a team full of lobbyists to come up with.

Now we have to make sure that every voter in America knows it. We need your help to make sure we can take them on -- we can't afford four more years of lobbyists, corporate interests, and George Bush's Washington.

Send a message about how Washington should work. Match the McCain campaign and the RNC right now:

http://www.democrats.org/McCainEthics

Thanks for hitting back,

Howard Dean

P.S. -- John McCain may try to claim that the past careers of his advisers are irrelevant, but look at this passage from today's Washington Post article about Charlie Black, McCain adviser and chairman of lobbying firm BKSH and Associates...

But even as Black provide a private voice and a public face for McCain, he also leads his lobbying firm, which offers corporate interests and foreign governments the promise of access to the most powerful lawmakers. Some of those companies have interests before the Senate and, in particular, McCain's Commerce Committee.

Black said he does a lot of his work by telephone from McCain's Straight Talk Express bus.
John McCain literally has a lobbyist for "corporate interests and foreign governments" working from the "Straight Talk Express."

Where will they work from if he wins the White House?

Make a contribution right now to stop this kind of politics:

http://www.democrats.org/McCainEthics

WELL, the New York Times article that is totally unsubstantiated just helped McCain get a record one day online donations. Sooooooooooo its backfiring.

the team of lobbyists who work for him, led by campaign manager and lobbyist Rick Davis, and the well-oiled right-wing noise machine, led by Rush Limbaugh

Rush has NEVER supported McClown!!!
He mentioned the NY Times scandal as a way to show conservatives what will happen if you cossy up with the lib media.

Just my opinion that it is obvious McCain is guilty as charged.

If McCain were innocent, there would have been a huge law suit sitting on the N.Y. Times desk first thing this morning. But rather McCain just wants the story to die.


It seems the GOP set out to lose the election this year by cramming McCain down our throats, a candidate that is no better than Hillary or Obama and probably more dangerous.

As Lou says, they are just different wings of the same bird.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/114505

A Hole in McCain’s Defense?
An apparent contradiction in his response to lobbyist story.

By Michael Isikoff | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Feb 22, 2008 | Updated: 11:33 a.m. ET Feb 22, 2008
Related:John McCain Vicki Iseman Floyd Abrams
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A sworn deposition that Sen. John McCain gave in a lawsuit more than five years ago appears to contradict one part of a sweeping denial that his campaign issued this week to rebut a New York Times story about his ties to a Washington lobbyist.

On Wednesday night the Times published a story suggesting that McCain might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman's clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station.

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."

While McCain said "I don't recall" if he ever directly spoke to the firm's lobbyist about the issue—an apparent reference to Iseman, though she is not named—"I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]." McCain agreed that his letters on behalf of Paxson, a campaign contributor, could "possibly be an appearance of corruption"—even though McCain denied doing anything improper.

McCain's subsequent letters to the FCC—coming around the same time that Paxson's firm was flying the senator to campaign events aboard its corporate jet and contributing $20,000 to his campaign—first surfaced as an issue during his unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid. William Kennard, the FCC chair at the time, described the sharply worded letters from McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, as "highly unusual."

The issue erupted again this week when the New York Times reported that McCain's top campaign strategist at the time, John Weaver, was so concerned about what Iseman (who was representing Paxson) was saying about her access to McCain that he personally confronted her at a Washington restaurant and told her to stay away from the senator.

The McCain campaign has denounced the Times story as a "smear campaign" and harshly criticized the paper for publishing a report saying that anonymous aides worried there might have been an improper relationship between Iseman and McCain. McCain, who called the charges "not true," also told reporters Thursday in a news conference that he was unaware of any confrontation Weaver might have had with Iseman.

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.

In April 2007, federal agents raided a Sonoita (so-no-EE-ta) Arizona business owned by Renzi's wife, Roberta.

For the whole story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0...a_n_87974.html

The GOP would have an army of defenders from the MSM slander machine had they not executed their base, ostercized them and mock and humiliated them. Now the GOP can wallow in a filth of their own making. I hope the attacks on McCain increase to a level unheard of in American politics. I will not come to the defense of McCain/Kennedy/Feingold one single, tiny bit.

The Democrats and their devotees in the "mainstream media" loved McCain, and lavished praise on him, whenever he gave conservatives the finger, and he basked in their approval. Now that he's the likely GOP nominee, the Dems and their agents in the media, are showing what they really think of the "maverick". Now he's just another one of the obstacles in their way.

Poetic justice, IMO. Let it serve as an example to other Republicans, who think there's political capital to be gained, by treating the base of their party with contempt, while seeking to "reach out" to Democrats.

Dianne wrote:

Just my opinion that it is obvious McCain is guilty as charged.

If McCain were innocent, there would have been a huge law suit sitting on the N.Y. Times desk first thing this morning. But rather McCain just wants the story to die.

I agree, I am sure this is only tip of the iceberg in reference to skeletons in his closet.

Originally Posted by Dianne

As Lou says, they are just different wings of the same bird.

And the American people are getting the bird from our government.

"Female" lobbyist, private jet etc. The whole thing makes me laugh. Why not? Lobbyists do all sorts of things to shmooz politicians. Trips, wining and dining, the works. I would not put it past the lobbyists to use a Heidi Fliess calibre whore to get McCain on their side. Big business does this kinda thing all of the time.