$78 Million for What?
The New York Times came out today with like its 20th did-you-know-John-McCain-consorts-with-lobbyists story of this election cycle. Here's how it begins:
As Senator John McCain waited to speak at the annual awards dinner of the International Republican Institute, a democracy-building group he has led for 15 years, lobbyists and business executives dominated the stage at a Washington hotel ballroom.
First up that night in September 2006 was the institute's vice chairman, Peter T. Madigan, a McCain campaign fund-raiser and lobbyist whose clients span the globe, from Dubai to Colombia. He thanked Timothy P. McKone, an AT&T lobbyist and McCain fund-raiser, for helping with the dinner arrangements and then introduced the chairman of AT&T, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., whose company had donated $200,000 for the event.
AT&T at the time was seeking political support for an $80 billion merger with BellSouth ? another Madigan client ? and Mr. Whitacre lavished praise on Mr. McCain, a senior member of the Senate Commerce Committee. When Mr. McCain finally took the podium, he expressed "profound thanks" to AT&T before presenting the institute's Freedom Award to the president of Liberia, a lobbying client of Charlie Black, an institute donor and McCain campaign adviser. […]
Operating without the sort of limits placed on campaign fund-raising, the institute under Mr. McCain has solicited millions of dollars for its operations from some 560 defense contractors, lobbying firms, oil companies and other corporations, many with issues before Senate committees Mr. McCain was on.
I suspect this is probably much more shocking to the New York Times and other journalists who once drank the McCain-crusades-against-lobbyists kool-aid, rather than regular voters. (If you are among the former, or just want a refresher course, read reason on McCain's campaign-finance hypocrisy here and here.)
I'm more interested in the IRI, which is a key to McCain's transformation from a Vietnam Syndrome realist type to a full-throated National Greatness neo-conservative, in addition to being one of these skeevy outfits financed by taxpayers (with a $78 million budget and 400 employees) to simultaneously promote democracy abroad and partisan politics at home. For instance, there's this:
When Mr. McCain's Democratic rival for president, Senator Barack Obama, traveled to Miami in May to address Cuban-Americans, Republicans circulated a memorandum to reporters that quoted an anti-Castro group criticizing Mr. Obama's willingness to talk to Cuba's communist leaders. Not mentioned was that the group, the Cuban Democratic Directorate, was financed for years by the International Republican Institute ? it got more than $8 million during Mr. McCain's tenure. Though the directorate does not endorse candidates, its leaders are effusive in praising Mr. McCain.
And there's the whole, what-side-is-he-working problem such as this:
Another board member is the McCain campaign's chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann. Until March, he was registered as a lobbyist for several foreign governments, and he represented the government of Georgia last January when the institute sent election monitors there. Since joining the institute in 2004, Mr. Scheunemann has spoken with Mr. McCain or his Senate aides at least 42 times on behalf of his foreign lobbying clients, Justice Department records show.
Scheunemann is an interesting and very influential-to-the-campaign neo-con figure, who stands to land a prominent role in a McCain administration if conflict-of-interest scandals don't get him first.
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LOL, mor political mumbo jumbo and double talk.
Jt
http://www.FireMe.to/udi
Politicians consort with lobbyists!
In other news;
Fish swim in water.
McCain is just about done, I wouldnt doubt the GOP ditch him at the last second and run a younger more charasmatic charachter. They could site his Cancer scare as the reason. I dont doubt that they will, Becuase he is becoming more unelectable by the day, with gaff after gaff. Did you see him knock all that stuff off the shelf at the supermarket. the video is at http://www.mccanes.com all the while barack obama is looking like an NBA super star, (arrogence and all) even taking time to stop and have a cigar break video at http://www.theobamaplan.com I mean really what is the GOP going to do. McCain cannot win at this point and we havnt even started the debates.
If McCain does lose by a large margin in November, it will be an interesting test of the “wasted vote” theory of 3rd party politics. After all, if McCain has no chance to win, a vote for Barr (or some other 3rd party paleo or theocrat) can’t reasonably be considered a wasted vote.
If the polls have McCain down by 12 points at the end of October, and Barr still gets the obligatory 3 percent, the “wasted vote” theory of voter behavior will likely lose some merit. Alternatively, if the other 3rd party critters get a sizable percentage and Barr doesn’t, that’ll say even more about the supposed libertarian 10 percent.
In the latest USA Today/Gallup poll, taken after last week’s “speech,” McCain has a 4% lead among likely voters:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-07-28-poll_N.htm
Those expecting a blowout will be disappointed.
McCain should consider beginning his campaign for president.
he is becoming more unelectable by the day, with gaff after gaff ? McCain cannot win at this point and we havnt even started the debates.
I seem to recall identical predictions about Bush in ’00 and ’04. Gore and Kerry (a war hero!) were going to debate the semi-literate Bush into submission. Then the Republican smear machine got cranked up. The transcendent sheen that Gore, Kerry and Obama have always wears off when the candidates get into the inevitable, caged, mud wrestling segment of America’s favorite reality show.
peter, you are underestimating the racism of Pennsylvania and Ohio clingers. I don’t think it’s going to be the slam dunk you think it is despite McCain’s faults
If anyone here wants to know why the Democrats don’t seem bothered by the taxpayer-funded IRI, look no further than the taxpayer-funded National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.
Bipartisanship at its best.
Colin,
As I learned in statistics, if there’s one thing you can trust, it’s outliers.
$78 million for what? The Council on Hemispheric Affairs published an article a few weeks ago called “A Hidden Agenda: John McCain and the International Republican Institiute” that explores that exact question.
http://www.coha.org/2008/06/a-hidden-agenda-john-mccain-and-the-iri/
I believe they’ve also published another article on the subject recently.