McCain Campaign’s Lobbyist Problem
The McCain campaign is hemorraging personnel as lobbying ties are revealed between members of the campaign staff and countries such as Myanmar and Saudi Arabia. Ethically challenged? The straightTalker promised he’d vet these folks better, but he’s got a Hurculean task to clean out the ethically-challenged Repubs on his staff.
Here’s McCain’s statement, reported by the Wall Street Journal on Monday, after the McCain campaign got rid of a couple officials who has lobbied for the government of Myanmar.
Sen. John McCain said today that his campaign will do a better job scrutinizing the people who work for it, given the resignation of two officials who had ties to a firm representing Myanmar’s military junta.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee also responded to a Wall Street Journal story published today that a firm co-owned by his campaign manager, Rick Davis, hired a public-relations firm to burnish the U.S. image of a Ukrainian political party backed by Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Asked what he was going to do to make sure these sorts of things do not happen in the future, McCain said, “People will be thoroughly, more thoroughly, vetted and we’ll make sure that that is the case.”
He specifically referred to the two people who were tied to Myanmar—Doug Davenport, a regional campaign director for Mid-Atlantic states, and Doug Goodyear, who was slated to run the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., this summer.
No, that wasn’t the end of it. Phil Gramm, lobbyist for UBS, and former porn investor, has had his role reduced at the McCain campaign, and a few others have since fled the ethically challenged McCain campaign…
But the day after making his promise, McCain was prompted to ask for the resignation of another adviser after a reporter questioned the man’s ties to a supposedly independent “527″ campaign group, which is barred by law from coordinating with candidates’ campaigns.
McCain’s camp paid Craig Shirley and his firm more than $22,000 for work earlier this year, the Politico newspaper reported. At the same time, the paper found, Shirley’s firm had been paid $155,000 by an anti-Hillary Clinton group, Stop Her Now. (The group recently changed its name to Stop Him Now and has wheeled its guns to target Barack Obama.)
Shirley’s firm will no longer work for McCain, and he will step down from McCain’s Virginia Leadership Team, the campaign told Politico.
This is all part of that K Street strategy that blew up in the faces of the Republicans, of course. The American people didn’t take kindly to the Republican notion that the revolving door between K Street lobbying firms and the legislature be a “Republican-only” door. John McCain himself was upset by all the lobbying, if I recall correctly. But because the K Street project went on so long, there’s hardly a mover and shaker in the Republican fold who hasn’t served as a lobbyist for some Dictatorial regime somewhere.
Hmm, here’s a story that might mean more people will be canned from the McCain campaign. Then again, the list may not become public information. Still, the culture of corruption is still paying dividends, eh?
As chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, John McCain began hearings that helped bring down Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist who was the central figure in a political scandal that landed Mr. Abramoff in jail.
Now, as Mr. McCain releases the names of hundreds of “bundlers” — his top money collectors — one person who popped up is Juan Carlos Benitez, a lawyer and lobbyist whom Mr. Abramoff had championed for a Bush administration post.
According to a 2006 report of the House Committee on Government Reform, Mr. Abramoff had urged the appointment of Mr. Benitez as special counsel for immigration-related unfair employment practices. He was named to the position in 2001.
The committee’s report said Mr. Benitez’s job at the Justice Department “gave Benitez authority” to conduct investigations into unfair labor practices that were “issues of importance to Abramoff clients.”
After leaving the administration, Mr. Benitez joined the K Street lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates, whose Web site says he “has exceptionally close ties to the White House.”
Mr. Benitez said Mr. Abramoff had done him no favors. They had competed for lobbying contracts, Mr. Benitez said, adding that Mr. Abramoff had sought an administration job for Mr. Benitez to get him out of the business. Mr. Benitez said he had no communications with Mr. Abramoff while working at the Justice Department.
For Mr. McCain, Mr. Benitez raised $50,000 to $100,000, according to the McCain Web site. Brian Rogers, a McCain spokesman, said: “Jack Abramoff was just one of several people that recommended Mr. Benitez to the Justice Department. The campaign is not aware of any hint of an allegation against Mr. Benitez.”
No comments:
Post a Comment