Mr. Maverick, John of the Saint McCain, sure does love him some lobbyists, at least until, they get caught serving as major campaign aides on his staff. Then, sadly, a few of them have to walk the plank to make it look like Honest John isn’t really just a creature of the Washington-Lobbbyist Complex. Indeed, John Loeffler, head of his own lobbying firm that has done work for Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, European Aeronautics Defence, AT&T, Qualcom, Southwest Airlines, The Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America and Toyota, among others was pushed out of his position as McCain’s national finance co-chairman, the fifth major aide with lobbyist credentials to do so:
[Loeffler] is the fifth person to sever ties with the campaign amid a growing concern over whether lobbyists have too great an influence over the Republican nominee. […]
Loeffler, a former congressman from Texas, is a close friend of McCain’s and took over the campaign’s fundraising last summer. He did not respond to e-mails or a message left on his office voice mail yesterday.
Newsweek reported that his firm, the Loeffler Group, had collected $15 million from Saudi Arabia and millions more from other foreign governments. He is listed as chairman and senior partner at the firm.
Fifteen million dollars is a nice chunk of change, and that’s just from the Saudis. Yet Loeffler is small fry compared to some of the other lobbyists and Beltway parasites who have worked, orcontinue to work for McCain. Here’s some of the more prominent among them who so far have refused to end their service for the the anti-establishment Maverick Man whom the media, in their manly crush way, love to tout as the Last Good Man in Politics:
McCain has built his reputation in Congress on fighting special interests and the lobbying culture, but he has been criticized for months about the number of lobbyists serving in key positions in his campaign. Until recently, his top political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., was the head of a Washington lobbying firm. Black retired in March from BKSH & Associates, the firm he helped found, to stay with the campaign. Davis ran a lobbying firm for several years but has said he is on leave from it. […]
McCain has steadfastly defended Black and Davis. “Charlie Black and Rick Davis are not in the lobbying business; they’ve been out of that business,” he told reporters. “Charlie Black has been involved in every presidential campaign going back to President Reagan’s first campaign. He has severed his connections with the lobbying group that he was with. Rick Davis has not been involved in any lobbying for years.”
And lest you still think McCain is a “high road” kind of guy, take a gander at these little tidbits revealed in the WaPo story:
The pressure on McCain has intensified amid concerns about people connected to the campaign lobbying on behalf of Burma’s military government, and the involvement with outside political groups that are not supposed to coordinate with a nominee’s official campaign.
Regional campaign manager Doug Davenport and Republican convention chief Doug Goodyear departed after acknowledging having represented Burma. Eric Burgeson, who lobbies the federal government on energy issues, left Thursday. GOP consultant Craig Shirley parted ways with the campaign because of his ties to http://www.stophernow.com, a site created to target Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) that is now aimed at Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
Gee, who would have thought McCain aides would have connections to swift boaters independent political organizations opposed to his Democratic opponents? Only a complete ignoramus, that’s who. This is just more of the same GOP crapola we saw in the 2004 election when Bush officials were discovered to have close ties to The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. It’s as if Karl Rove is advising McCain’s campaign on how to slime the Democrats while still pretending to take the “high road.” Oh, that’s right, I forgot, he already is.
McCain isn’t just a creature of the GOP’s K Street project, he’s their damn stealth bomber candidate, the man with the undeserved reputation of being a Republican independent, even though he’s got more lobbyist juice coursing through his political veins than practically any other politician this side of the recently resigned and disgraced Tom DeLay. His millionaire heiress wife profited off investments from the genocidal regime in Sudan, while his pals in Washington take baths in the pile of cash they get from repressive regimes in Saudi Arabia and Burma, not to mention all the goodies tossed their way by corporate interests, both foreign and domestic.
Of course, anyone who looked beneath the surface of the media’s love fest for MCCain already knew he was the biggest hypocrite in Congress. A man who will say anything, or sell any piece of himself, to get elected. He makes the Clintons and the DLC look like a poor Mom and Pop operation when it comes to all the lies and deceits he is willing to propagate, and all the Beltway insider special interest connections he has so avidly courted.
Indeed, let me leave you with this wonderful video by Brave New Films regarding McCain’s well documented lies, half truths and naked pandering:
Sort of says it all, doesn’t it?
