Barack Obama came out with a strong statement defending his wife, Michelle (in photo), from renewed GOP attacks on her “proud” comment.
“The GOP, should I be the nominee, I think can say whatever they want to say about me, my track record,” Obama said in an interview shown on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“If they think that they’re going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful, because that I find unacceptable.”
He added that the GOP should “lay off my wife.”
This could help Obama. Yes, a spouse is fair game, to some extent. But if Michelle is perceived as being bullied and pilloried by Swift-boaters, Obama’s defense could play well with voters. He’s showing he’s going to protect his family. Voters of either party can respect that.
130 Comments
I’m going to say the same thing here that I said a long time ago when we were discussing tiahrt’s son’s suicide.
If you use your family to campaign, put them in ads, etc, much less let them SPEAK for you, then, yeah.
They are fair game.
Dont like that? Dont use them! But if you use them to show what a family kinda guy you are, then expect them to become campaign fodder.
And that goes for ALL candidates!
Across the board it is time for Obama to take the gloves off. Take the fight to McBush and the Repukes at every level.
Heh, well Ben, you are assuming he has the ability to take the gloves off. Or the stomach for it.
“Voters of either party can respect that” wrong, the RW can’t.
““If they think that they’re going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful, because that I find unacceptable.”
He added that the GOP should “lay off my wife.”
I find it unacceptable that Barak Obama puts her out there in the limilight, making campaign speeches, etc, thereby making herself a public figure, and then thinks people who disagree should “layoff”
I’m anxious to see if attacks work as well this political season as in the Rovian days. I think Americans aren’t falling for those tactics as easily. In fact, I feel the attacker may do him / herself more harm than befalls their target.
I congratulate Obama for not taking anything laying down. He can’t ignore any criticisms and needs to address them quickly and succintly. Then he needs to move to the issues and stay above the fray. That’s how he will throw the attacks back on the attacker.
Gosh Lj. Welcome to the world of Clinton supporters!
obama can say or do whatever he pleases. But criticize him?
You’ll hear the waaaaaaaasaaambulance immediately!
ksfarmgrrl
Posted May 19, 2008 at 1:08 pm | Permalink
Gosh Lj. Welcome to the world of Clinton supporters!
obama can say or do whatever he pleases. But criticize him?
You’ll hear the waaaaaaaasaaambulance immediately!
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ditto - most excellent analysis kfg
I’ve heard less squealing from a pig sliding down the chute in a slaughter house.
Reguliar–
I speak for all thinking people when I say that KSFarmGrrl doesn’t want your support, neither do I, neither does anybody.
Here’s something really interesting from The Guardian UK:
George Bush’s grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany. The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.
His business dealings, which continued until his company’s assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.
The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator’s action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
Capn - don’t forget McCain advisors trying to paint a pretty picture of the repressive Myanmar regime.
McCain has advisors left? He seemed to be changing them out as often as many change socks. Much trouble in his camp. Sends a great signal of what his administration would be.
I wonder if Bush would call making money for and with Nazis “appeasement”?
I remember when Laura Bush’ “teenage accident” was off-limits, according to the GOP, but now a misinterpreted remark by Michelle Obama is grounds to smear Barack.
For those that can’t (or won’t) figure it out, he remark was a reference to her husband’s historic campaign and the enthusiasm that it has created.
Damn.
I’m sure the very last thing ksfarmgrrl ever wants is my endorsement for something she writes but her post at the top is ’spot on’, and worth a second read.
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2008/05/obama-warns-gop-to-lay-off-wife/#comment-352154
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cv333saZoU&NR=1
Just for those that are interested enough in what M. Obama said. Here is a bright and clear video of her speech. Unlike the one flowed by Fox and the Ala GOP. If you compare the three you will note, at first the word “really” has been grabled. Thanks to Fox and the wonders of editing. The word “really” has been totally deleted. Calling it low life is rather mild to discribe the thought on the question of how stupid the American people are? Of course how well the deception work is the best answer to the question.
CraponAmerica,
I’m sure no one is interested in a 66 year old story that didn’t pan out for the Bush conspiratists.
Let’s see there Crapn, was Prescott Bush or anyone in his family convicted?
Were the funds seized during the war released and given back to the Bush family?
You know the answers Crapn.
But you know, bringing up a 66 year old story about Prescott Bush in an Obama thread is an all time low for you.
You that desperate or have you just been demoted to the brain wave pattern of a diseased yak?
Mccain responds ” If the C*nt can’t take the heat, get her out of the kitchen”.
KFG is right. If Michelle Obama is part of the campaign, making speeches and speaking on behalf of her husband, then she’s fair game.
If she does not, then she’s not. But she has, and I presume will continue to do so. If she does, than she’s fair game. Note, Capn, the criticism is not on accidents she may have had some 30+ years ago, or on what her parents or grandparents may have done, but on what she says today.
Don’t pretend you don’t know the difference.
Maybe Mrs. Obama would like to comment on Junior Obama’s old man who was tapping his second wife while married to his third wife. In fact, Barak Hussein Obama Senior gave Barak Hussein Obama Junior two b* stard step-brothers. Wonder what became of them?
Was Senator Obama ”fer’ his illegitimate step-brothers before he was ‘agin’ them?’
Did Barak Hussein Obama Senior read about Prescott Bush or was he too busy beating his wives while taunting them with his ’scotch’ tainted breath?
Is this where Senator Obama learned his family values?
Tennessee GOP=what happens when cousins marry.
BUT then it is just politics and simply dropping one word to make a dishonest point is mild compare to saying that Tiahrt’ s son hung himself for being gay or was it because he was anti-gun in a pro-gun house.
And of course Hillary is a lesbian, Dole shot himself in the hand to get out of the war. Yeah compare to the diet we have gotten in the past why would anyone complain about one word being dropped? Obama is really touchy huh!
“GMC70″ chimes in with –
“If Michelle Obama is part of the campaign, making speeches and speaking on behalf of her husband, then she’s fair game.”
So, since multi-millionaire Cindy McCain’s private jet flies McBush to campaign appearances — in violation of McCain-Feingold campaign finance regulations — perhaps we should see her financial and tax records, just to be certain her husband the Senator hasn’t been skirting other laws on their behalf. Fair’s fair, after all.
Chelsea Clinton has campaigned for her mom. Makes her “fair game,” right, “GMC70?”
Malia and Sasha Obama have appeared in television and internet ads. They’re “fair game,” right, “GMC70?” Maybe Sasha has colored outside the lines or something.
Just how low in the gutter are you prepared to go?
Writerdog,
Where is your proof of this dropping of a word to make a dishonest point?
Everything I have heard has been in regards to exactly what she said, not some edited piece.
MonkeyHawk,
Obviously none of us are going as low as you in what you have said about Todd Tiahrt.
You are a sad hypocritical lying POS.
You are in the gutter as low as anyone can go when it comes to political crap and you dare ask us how low we are willing to go?
My answer to you is:
Obivously not lower than you, because it is not possible.
That’s how you know you’ve won, MonkeyHawk.
Well done!
Keep in mind the overseas endorcements for Hussein Obama +HAMAS ?? .. at this point Osama has learned to keep his mouth shut
My my my.
Obama finally grew a set about something?
He better get a handle on his wife. I don’t like her.
I HEAR that she is against the idea of a dream ticket. Now if Senator Clinton is not the nominee but wants the VP job? She is entitled to it. And I promise you her supporters would not look favorably on Obama dissing Senator Clinton.
And all that entails.
Let’s see - George Bush just met with Hamas just a day or so ago.
But to have Hamas say that they would welcome a Obama presidency is cause to bring out the “Hussein Obama” bullshit?
And the Republics wonder why we call the hypocrites.
“He better get a handle on his wife. I don’t like her.”
Well, that does it, I’ll put in a call to Barack right now.
Myanmar looks to be onboard for McCain. At least if their lobbyist has anything to say about it.
Dsimiss Senator Clinton and her supporters at your own peril there guy.
Michelle Obama put herself in the limelight. Her choice. As I understand it, Obama’s two kids are gradeschool age; I doubt very much that they’re making any policy speeches on behalf of their father. Unless they do, I’d say they’re off limits. It takes more than just a pretty family photo - which every candidate does - to make them fair game.
If Cindy McCain makes speeches on behalf of her husband, yes, she’s fair game too. Good for the goose, and all that. I haven’t seen her making speeches on behalf of John McCain, though she may have. As I understand it, Cindy and John McCain’s financial lives have always been separate (always filed separate tax returns, etc). She’s entitled to keep here private life private, at least until she interjects herself into the campaign. As far as flying John around, I’ve seen nothing but allegations on this blog on that. Of course, MH, if you told me sky was blue, I’d go doublecheck.
Chelsea’s a big girl; when she speaks on behalf of her mother, yes, what she says is fair game. If she can’t stand the heat, well, I suppose you know the rest.
“Just how low in the gutter are you prepared to go?”
It’s not how low I would go that is the issue, is it? You’ve set the bar low, and seem prepared to continue to lower it. We’ve seen you go after a politician over his son’s suicide, so we know you have no sense of honor; Capn’s trotted out the alleged crimes two generations back to prove, what exactly? It appears that Democrats - or at least you and Capn - believe NOTHING is off limits.
So you’ve demonstrated just how low you and Capn are prepared to go; I have no worries that anyone here will outslime you.
BlueJay - I just do not see the so-called “dream ticket” coming together for a number of reasons. Both are too strong personalities - they would inevitibly clash. I instead see Senate Majority Leader Clinton being, in fact, more powerful than the Vice President.
WSClark writes . . . “George Bush just met with Hamas just a day or so ago” ???? I don’t know what “News Sources” you ponder, but I’d find some new ones :)
” It takes more than just a pretty family photo - which every candidate does - to make them fair game. ”
That’s about all it took for the Republics to go after Chelsea when Bill Clinton was president.
bth
Posted May 19, 2008 at 3:44 pm | Permalink
BlueJay - I just do not see the so-called “dream ticket” coming together for a number of reasons. Both are too strong personalities - they would inevitibly clash. I instead see Senate Majority Leader Clinton being, in fact, more powerful than the Vice President.
————————
I wonder what all those more Senior Democratic Senators would think about Sen. Clinton leap frogging her way to the Senate majority chair? :D
“Now if Senator Clinton is not the nominee but wants the VP job? She is entitled to it.”
She’s entitled to exactly nothing. There will not be any dream ticket. Obama will not want to be saddled with Clinton, and I doubt very much Clinton would give up a seat in the Senate, which does matter, for a do-nothing job that doesn’t matter.
It’s over, JR. It’s been over for at least a month to anyone who’s not delusional. But I hope she keeps it up, personally. There’s nothing I would like better than a brokered convention where the superdelegates hand the nomination to Hillary. Democrats can say goodbye to the black vote for a generation, and without that block of votes, Democrats can’t win.
Yea, JR. Keep that horse in the running to the bitter end . . .
GMC70 - absolutely correct. That is why I would call upon Clinton to follow the benchmark set by McAuliffe of her own campaign: A plurality of popular votes and within 100 delegates. IF she can achieve that by June 3 then she might have a case to make. If she cannot then, by her own campaign’s benchmark, she should step down.
The fact that she is now sounding much more conciliatory toward Obama and is attacking McLame indicates that she knows the situation. As a Senator with a President Obama she will have power. But, if she is perceived as having helped elect a McBush she will be ostracized.
“If Cindy McCain makes speeches on behalf of her husband, yes, she’s fair game too. Good for the goose, and all that. I haven’t seen her making speeches on behalf of John McCain, though she may have.”
IIRC, she’s been giving interviews, not speeches. One recently with Ann Curry and another with ABC, I think. That makes her fair game. And yes, I think she should release her financial info. Married is married, joint returns or not.
And yeah, Chelsea is what, almost thirty? She’s a big girl and campaigning with the best of them. I adore her and would vote for her in a heart beat.
And I think those “pretty family photos” make folks fair game too. I dont know how you could go after little kids, but I STRONGLY resent those “pretty family photos” being used in campaigns.
…and the repukes went after Chelsea when she was what, twelve? And do I need to mention the cruelty towards Amy Carter?
ksfg - my Chelsea comment was in reference to 16 years ago.
I knew that Ben, and sorry if I implied otherwise. And yeah, 16 years ago, I think she was 12.
So what is the republican age of consent for being trashed by the conservatives?
“Democrats can say goodbye to the black vote for a generation, and without that block of votes, Democrats can’t win.”
They also cant win this year without the Hillary supporters.
And they cant win in the long term without women.
“I wonder what all those more Senior Democratic Senators would think about Sen. Clinton leap frogging her way to the Senate majority chair?”
Since she would have to be elected by her party peers, I guess they would support her if they elected her.
And a yellow DOG could do a better job than harry reid.
Everything I have heard has been in regards to exactly what she said, not some edited piece.
Then you need to take out the earplugs, Nathaniel. Even here on the blog her statement was misquoted.
In 2004, the Republicans kept repeating that Teresa Heinz Kerry had money tied up in the Heinz (as in ketchup) Co., when in fact, neither she nor John Kerry, nor any member of their family has ties to the company. She’s a bright, intelligent woman who spoke her mind, and for that, she got dumped on. No other reason, just a good target. You guys like doing that, doncha?
“In America, the true patriots are those who dare speak the truth to power.” — Teresa Heinz Kerry, July 27, 2004
Blablabla…….
This race is over in KS. SNOBama worshippers, get over it.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/state_toplines/kansas/toplines_kansas_general_election_may_13_2008
Nathan and I am not sure why I am responding to you since I am sure you have became familiar with the Ala ad and the Fox news version. But since I had provided the link that is the unaltered version. It is quite plain that both the Ala ad and Fox’s version have been altered. Leaving out a word makes a difference
It is also an insult to the America people that it is so blatant, if they want to deceive the people at least give us the benefit of the doubt that we are not stupid! But then maybe I have more faith in the people than you do. I actually feel some sorrow for Fox news if the best they can come up with is such a mindless attempt to fool the listeners.
Michelle Obama made herself a target by being a part of the campaign that is true. But it is not about either Obamas it about them thinking you are this stupid. A wise man once said, “ I do not mind being lied to, just do not insult me while doing by being oblivious you are lying to me”.
RPMcM - interesting that 74% say we are on the wrong track but a majority still want to stay on that wrong track.
should have read:
“ I do not mind being lied to, just do not insult me by being oblivious you are lying to me”.
Obama has too much communism in him. Here is a statement he made in Oregan.
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.
“That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen,” he added.
The heck you say, I will drive my van, eat as much as I want and control my own thermostat. Dems, what do you have to say about that statement.
Who’s the worst spouse to have at politicking time. The all say the wrong thing for some people
Obama has too much communism in him. Here is a statement he made in Oregan.
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.
“That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen,” he added.
The heck you say, I will drive my van, eat as much as I want and control my own thermostat. Dems, what do you have to say about that statement.
Who’s the worst spouse to have at politicking time. The all say the wrong thing for some people
The repubs. definitely should clamor for cindy mccain to release her tax records as loud as they did for Teressa Kerry to release her MFS tax returns. To do less is hypocrisy.
Found this 2000 article questioning McCains integrity, seems he just isn’t the reformer he holds himself out to be:
May 19, 2008
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The Buying of the President 2000
John McCain
Home > Archives > The Buying of the President 2000 - John McCain
The Buying of the President 2000John McCainThe planners at Del Webb Corporation, the nation’s seventh largest builder of single family homes, leave little to chance. In subdivisions with names like Copper Cove and Sienna Canyon, the company offers buyers homes with three-car garages, wall-to-wall carpeting, and landscaped yards. Retirees at Sunflower, a Del Webb “active adult” community in Tucson, Arizona, can sun by the pool, soak in a Jacuzzi, or hit the tennis court.
Del Webb communities dot seven states, including Arizona, where the company is headquartered. But to make way for its sprawling real estate developments, Del Webb has arranged several controversial land swaps with the federal government.
In 1994, for example, Del Webb Corporation proposed exchanging some of its land for a 4,000-acre tract near the Red Rock National Conservation Area, a scenic stretch of desert featuring seasonal springs and clusters of Joshua trees 15 miles west of Las Vegas. But the plan hit a brick wall when the U.S. House approved legislation to expand the Red Rock National Conservation Area to include the acreage the company wanted.
One of the company’s lobbyists, Donald Moon, a burly former prosecutor with ties to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, tried to get the bill’s sponsors to exclude the land that Del Webb wanted from Red Rock, but nothing came of his efforts. He then turned to Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona. He knew McCain would help, for over the years, Del Webb had helped McCain. The company’s executives and employees, in fact, have given McCain at least $56,535 in campaign contributions, making Del Webb his No. 7 career patron.
And help McCain did. He placed a “hold” on the legislation (through a letter of notification to Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole), thus stalling it indefinitely.
Having bought some time, Moon then arranged a meeting with Robert Armstrong, the assistant Interior secretary in charge of the Bureau of Land Management, which controlled the land Del Webb wanted. Moon reckoned that if he could get Armstrong to write a letter in support of an alternative swap, he could use it to force quick government approval of a new deal. But Armstrong refused.
Moon had better luck with members of Nevada’s congressional delegation, all of whom signed a letter of support for Del Webb’s new proposal to exchange 4,700 acres of federal land in Las Vegas Valley, south of the city.
Once Moon had the letter in hand, McCain lifted his hold. The legislation to expand the Red Rock National Conservation Area passed the Senate intact, and Moon used the Nevada delegation’s letter to pressure the Bureau of Land Management into approving the Las Vegas Valley swap. When it came time to pay up, Del Webb offered the federal government $9,000 per acre for the land, based on an appraisal it had paid for. An appraisal commissioned by opponents of the deal, however, valued the land at $36,000 per acre. A March 1998 report by the Interior Department’s Inspector General faulted BLM for relying on Del Webb’s appraisal and concluded that taxpayers would have lost at least $9 million if the government had accepted Del Webb’s $9,000-an-acre offer. But the report came too late: In 1997, the BLM accepted Del Webb’s second offer of $10,900 per acre.
At stop after stop, traveling on a campaign bus that he’s nicknamed the “Straight Talk Express,” McCain tells his audiences that, as president, he would “take our politics and our government back from the special interests.”
But as his actions on behalf of Del Webb Corporation demonstrate, it’s sometimes hard to tell on which side of “the special interests” McCain actually stands. Through his 18 years in the Senate, he’s been an effective advocate for telephone carriers, railroads, real estate developers, and mining companies, among other well-heeled interests. The portrait McCain likes is the one of the plain-talking crusader who’s bucking the system; the one many others see is that of a politician who rarely breaks ranks with the special interests that finance his campaigns.
McCain’s mouth has always gotten him in trouble. As a student at Episcopal High School, a private boarding school in Alexandria, Virginia, his indifference to rules and regulations earned him the nicknames “Punk” and “McNasty.”
When he entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1954, McCain didn’t quietly abide the hazing routinely dished out by upper-classmen. In fact, the entire hierarchy of the Academy rankled him. “It was bullshit,” he once said. “I resented the hell out of it.”
For McCain, however, being something of a hothead was in keeping with family tradition. His grandfather, John Sidney “Slew” McCain, was an admiral during World War II whose acid-tongued assaults on his enemies can still make his grandson wince. McCain’s father, John McCain, Jr., was a submarine skipper during World War II whose wild onshore antics and penchant for cursing earned him the nickname “Good Goddamn McCain.”
McCain’s stubborn feistiness cost him at Annapolis: He graduated close to the bottom of his class. But the same qualities, years later, would see him through a gauntlet of harrowing experiences in Vietnam.
First there was the fire aboard USS Forrestal. On July 29, 1967, McCain, by then a Navy pilot, was getting ready for takeoff when a rocket from another plane on the deck of the carrier accidentally went off, hitting his plane as he sat in the cockpit. He miraculously managed to escape alive, but the ensuing explosions and fires took 134 lives. It was the worst non-combat-related disaster in U.S. Navy history.
Then there was his capture by the North Vietnamese. In the fall of 1967, McCain transferred to USS Oriskany, only to be shot down on a bombing run over central Hanoi. McCain ejected and landed in a lake, breaking both arms and one leg in the process. An angry mob fished him out and beat him with rifle butts before carting him off to Hoa Lo prison, which its captives sarcastically named the “Hanoi Hilton.”
While McCain was imprisoned, his father became the commander in chief of all military forces in the Pacific. When his captors discovered who his father was, they offered to release him ahead of other prisoners who had been captured before him in an attempt to score propaganda points and crush the morale of the Americans left behind. McCain refused. After enduring repeated torture and two years in solitary confinement, he and the other U.S. POWs were finally released in 1973.
McCain’s courage in the face of incredible adversity earned him a hero’s welcome on his return, and, later, a springboard for a career in politics.
In 1976, McCain toyed with the idea of running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in Florida, where he was stationed at the time. He ended up deciding not to run, but within a year he was on Capitol Hill as the Navy’s liaison to the Senate. From his digs on the first floor of the Hart Senate Office Building, McCain handled everything from the day-to-day troubles of sailors who were facing courts-martial to the Navy’s successful two-year lobbying push for a new nuclear carrier.
As his days in the liaison office were winding down, McCain grew impatient to run for office, but he lacked a base from which to launch his political career. As a Navy brat, he’d never lived anyplace long enough to call home. His marriage to Carol Shepp, whom he had wed in 1965, fell apart shortly after he returned from Vietnam. So, in 1981, a year after remarrying, he headed for Arizona, the home state of his second wife, Cindy Hensley.
Cindy Hensley is heir to a considerable family fortune. Her father, James Hensley, started a beer distributorship in 1955, just as Arizona’s economy was entering a long boom period. Today, Hensley & Company, based in Phoenix, is the biggest Anheuser-Busch distributor in the state and one of the largest beer distributors in the nation.
From the moment McCain landed in Phoenix, the Hensleys were key sponsors of his political career. Being elected to Congress was “the ultimate goal,” McCain recalled years later. “I just didn’t know how long it would take.”
In the early 1980s, Arizona was in the midst of reapportioning its congressional seats. It was clear that the state, owing to its significant population growth, would get an additional congressional district — the only question was where. While McCain waited for a chance to run, James Hensley gave him a public relations job at Hensley & Company so that he could travel around the state and build up contacts. McCain received an annual salary of $25,000 and an annual bonus of $25,000. His wife often acted as a one-woman advance team.
When all the lines were drawn, the new congressional district was in Tucson, far from McCain’s new home in Phoenix. But McCain soon learned that Representative John Rhodes, then the House minority leader, was about to retire after 15 terms. The only problem was that the McCains had settled just outside of Rhodes’ district. The couple fixed that by quickly buying a house inside Rhodes’ district (so quickly, in fact, that it was arranged within hours of his official retirement announcement).
Campaigning for the first time, McCain silenced critics who branded him a carpetbagger with the reply: “The place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi.” And in sharp contrast to the maverick image he cultivates today, McCain sold himself in television ads as someone who “knows how Washington works,” complete with photographs of him with President and Mrs. Reagan and Senator John Tower of Texas.
His war record and Washington experience put him over the top. In the spring of 1982, McCain came from behind to win a four-way Republican primary with 32 percent of the vote. He coasted to victory in the fall.
Once in Congress, McCain was the exact opposite of the hotheaded rebel he was at Annapolis. He was elected president of the incoming Republican class. He became a voice of tolerance within his party, championing the rights of Native Americans. When he disagreed with President Reagan, it was to oppose sending troops into Lebanon.
In 1986, after just two terms in the House, McCain moved on to the Senate and deeper into the arms of the GOP establishment.
In 1988, Vice President George Bush sent McCain across the country to attack his Democratic rival for the White House, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts. McCain even made the short list of contenders to be Bush’s vice president. Eager to climb the party ranks, he also sought the chairmanship of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee — a job that, ironically, would later go to Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, his future nemesis in the fight over campaign finance reform.
The Hensleys helped a lot throughout these years. So did an Arizona real estate developer named Charles H. Keating, Jr. For years, McCain accepted Keating’s assorted forms of largesse — campaign contributions, all-expenses-paid vacations, free rides on his corporate jet — without realizing, apparently, that there might be strings attached.
The two men met at a Navy League dinner in 1981. Like McCain, Keating was a former Navy pilot and newcomer to Arizona. He’d moved to Phoenix in 1976 and started American Continental Corporation, a real estate development company. When McCain announced that he was running for office, he sought out Keating, who arranged a fundraiser for him. Over the course of his House and early Senate career, McCain would collect $112,000 in campaign contributions from Keating, his relatives, and his employees.
But there was a kicker. When he was asked, years later at a press conference, whether his contributions to politicians bought him influence, Keating replied, “I want to say in the most forceful way I can: I certainly hope so.”
McCain got more than just campaign money from Keating. McCain, his family, and their babysitter flew on Keating-owned or -chartered jets nine times, including three trips to Cat Cay, Keating’s vacation estate in the Bahamas. And in 1986, Keating cut Cindy McCain and her father into Fountain Square Shopping Center, a strip mall that American Continental Corporation built and managed, for a $359,000 investment.
It was just a matter of time before Keating called in his chits. When he did, it was over Lincoln Savings and Loan, a thrift in Irvine, California, that he’d bought in 1984. It turned out that Keating was raiding the assets of Lincoln’s depositors to finance posh real estate projects such as The Phoenician, a $300 million, 654-room hotel and spa in Scottsdale, Arizona, and his own lavish lifestyle. By 1986, Edwin Gray, the chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, grew worried that Lincoln had strayed too far from its core mortgage business, and began to clamp down. Keating turned to his friends in Washington for help.
On March 19, 1987, Keating appealed to McCain in person to meet with federal regulators on his behalf. At first McCain balked, but then, on April 2, he joined Senators Alan Cranston of California, John Glenn of Ohio, and Dennis DeConcini of Arizona in DeConcini’s office to meet with Gray. On April 9 the four senators, joined by Don Riegle of Michigan, sat down in San Francisco with four more regulators from the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. Following the meetings, the board delayed its seizure of Lincoln Savings and Loan for two more years.
When the federal government finally took over Lincoln in 1989, the bailout cost taxpayers $2.6 billion, making it the most expensive S&L bailout in U.S. history. About 17,000 small investors also lost a total of $190 million.
In November 1989, outrage over the bailout and the intervention of powerful lawmakers sparked an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee. From then on, McCain and the other four senators, who together accepted $1.3 million in contributions from Keating, were known as the Keating Five.
Caught neck-deep in Keating’s pocket, McCain scrambled to extricate himself. He quickly paid Keating $13,433 for the flights he and his family had taken on Keating’s jet years earlier. But it was too late to make up for the fact that, as a member of the House, he’d never disclosed the flights, as required under House rules. He refused to return Keating’s contributions; instead he filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in which he charged that Keating had illegally made his campaign contributions through American Continental employees. (The FEC dropped the case a few years later.)
McCain readily admitted that he’d made a mistake by going to the meetings, but insisted, “I in no way abused my office.” He crisscrossed Arizona, laying out his version of events before newspaper editorial boards and at town meetings. He even telephoned some reporters so many times to tell his side of the story that they stopped returning his calls. “It’s like a campaign,” he said at the time. “A campaign for credibility.”
Transcripts of the meetings supported his claim that he’d been the most reticent of the bunch. At one point during the meeting, McCain told Gray that while American Continental was a large employer in his state, “I wouldn’t want any special favors for them.”
In February 1991 the Senate Ethics Committee cleared McCain, saying he had “exercised poor judgment” but that his actions had not been “improper nor attended with gross negligence.”
“Clearly, ‘no improper conduct’ is what is important here,” McCain said on hearing the committee’s decision. “I view that as full exoneration.”
In a postscript to the scandal, McCain finally contributed $112,000 — the amount of money he’d gotten from Keating-related interests — to the U.S. Treasury. (Keating would otherwise rank as his No. 1 career patron.) McCain’s wife and father-in-law, however, held on to their stake in the Fountain Square Shopping Center. In fact, they held on to it long after American Continental Corporation went bankrupt. Cindy McCain, her father, and the remaining owners sold the mall two years ago for $15 million, reaping a profit that McCain has reported as between $100,000 and $1 million.
McCain’s career survived the Keating Five scandal. In 1992 he won reelection with 56 percent of the vote. Then he emerged as one of Congress’s leading advocates of political reform. In 1995 he helped to pass a $50 limit on the gifts that senators and members of their staffs can accept from outside interests, as well as a lobbying disclosure law that forces special interests to disclose how much they pay and whom they hire to lobby on particular issues. That year, McCain and Democratic Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin began pushing their proposal to overhaul the nation’s campaign finance system.
A year later, McCain was the only Republican in the Senate to vote against the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Proponents of the law insisted that massive deregulation of the telecommunications industry would bring more Americans into the information age at lower prices. But as McCain tells it, the legislation was “written by every interest in the world except consumers.”
So far, McCain has been right. Cable rates are up 6.8 percent nationwide, and rates for telephone service have gone up as much as 20 percent in some states. Instead of stiffer competition, there’s been speedier consolidation, with one merger after another: NYNEX and Bell Atlantic; SBC Communications, Inc., and Pacific Telesis Group; AT&T and TCI Communications, Inc.
In 1997, McCain found himself in a position to do something about the telecommunications mess. He succeeded the law’s chief sponsor, Larry Pressler of South Dakota, as the chairman of the Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the telecommunications, aviation, and high-tech industries, among others.
While McCain may have come to the job with a well-documented distaste for unregulated monopolies, his equally strong dislike of regulation has led him time and again to side with companies or industries he believes will make a market more competitive. The result: McCain pushes their agenda, and they finance his campaigns.
Corporate interests with business before the Commerce Committee have showered money on McCain — enough money to help him raise $4.4 million for his 1998 Senate race, more than 10 times as much as his opponent, Ed Ranger, a political novice.
Today, McCain’s presidential campaign is no different.
One day last March, he collected more than $120,000 at a Washington fundraiser hosted by Kenneth Duberstein, a lobbyist for Time Warner, Inc., CSX Corporation, and many other corporate interests with business before the Commerce Committee; John Timmons, a former McCain aide who’s now a lobbyist for America West Airlines, Inc.; and Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota who now lobbies for Boeing and AT&T.
Special interests are putting money into McCain’s presidential campaign “under the theory,” as J. Steven Hart, a lobbyist for Continental Airlines, put it to a reporter for The Washington Post, “that no matter what happens, he’s still chairman of the Commerce Committee.”
McCain betrays his own coziness with Washington’s influence peddlers when he describes his lobbyist fundraisers as “people I’ve done business with for the past 17 years.”
Take the case of U S West, Inc., based in Englewood, Colorado, which holds a virtual monopoly over local telephone service in 14 states, including Arizona. In North Dakota, U S West’s basic phone rates are set to go up more than 20 percent by July 2000. Last year, 15,000 U S West customers in Omaha, Nebraska, signed a petition opposing a rate increase in their state, arguing that they were already paying more than their counterparts in 10 other states served by U S West.
U S West is McCain’s No. 1 career patron.
In May 1999, McCain introduced the “Internet Regulatory Freedom Act,” which would boost the company’s efforts to offer high-speed Internet service over long distance phone lines. U S West has been especially eager to break into the long distance phone market since June 1998, when long distance provider AT&T bought cable giant TCI. The merger allows AT&T to offer high-speed Internet service over cable lines, on top of cable television service and local and long distance telephone service. But under rules set up by the government when it broke up Ma Bell, the regional Bell operating companies — U S West among them — can provide service only within local calling boundaries known as local access and transport areas, or LATAs. McCain’s bill would let U S West and the other “baby Bells” provide services beyond their LATAs.
U S West would stand to profit in a big way from McCain’s bill. “If the Internet is deregulated in the manner Senator McCain is suggesting,” Solomon Trujillo, the company’s chairman, said the day McCain introduced his bill, “U S West will be able to provide high-speed Internet service to an additional 2 million households and businesses throughout our region during the first year alone.”
News Corporation, Ltd., which owns Fox Broadcasting, the nation’s fourth-largest television network, has also found a friend in McCain. (Employees of Fox-related companies gave McCain $14,050 in contributions on a single day in 1998.)
Last year McCain pushed a measure that would have increased the number of local TV stations that major networks can own. The proposal would directly benefit Fox Broadcasting, the only network to have reached the ownership ceiling. At the same time McCain was taking his idea around Capitol Hill, his chief aide on telecommunications issues, Lauren “Pete” Belvin, was running an antiques business with Maureen O’Connell, a lobbyist for Fox who was working to raise the cap. Last summer, after Mother Jones broke the news of their personal business ties, Belvin and O’Connell dissolved their partnership.
In 1997, Congress awarded spectrum valued at $70 billion to the nation’s broadcasters, Fox included, with the proviso that they switch from analog to digital television signals by 2006. McCain criticized it as corporate welfare. But he softened his stance after Fox’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch [In the interests of full disclosure, Murdoch also owned the company that published this book.], flew him out to Los Angeles in February 1998 for a private demonstration of standard-definition digital television technology, a cheaper, lower-definition alternative that’s being pushed by Fox and Microsoft Corporation. Andrew Butcher, a spokesman for Fox, told the Center for Public Integrity that, after the demonstration, McCain met behind closed doors with Fox executives. “I thought they made a pretty good case that the picture clarity at the lower level was pretty good,” McCain said afterward. He promised hearings before his committee, and they were held in July.
Hensley & Company, the family business that McCain’s wife serves as vice president and director, is the senator’s No. 2 career patron. Since 1982, McCain has received at least $161,000 in campaign contributions from beer-related interests. That figure doesn’t include the thousands of dollars in speaking fees from beer-related interests that McCain has donated to charity, nor does it include free travel provided to McCain by Anheuser-Busch, with whom McCain’s father-in-law has had an exclusive business arrangement since he founded his company in 1955. Most of the personal wealth of the Hensleys and of McCain’s children is in Anheuser-Busch stock.
McCain has publicly acknowledged the enormous potential for conflicts of interest by pledging to recuse himself from voting on legislation that affects the beer industry. To some extent, however, it is a half-empty gesture: He can’t really avoid such legislation. In 1998 the National Beer Wholesalers Association listed 26 legislative priorities on its website, many of which were under the jurisdiction of the Commerce Committee. In the 18 years he has been in Congress, McCain has rarely taken a stand against the beer industry’s interests.
Despite his support for regulating tobacco advertising and violence on television, McCain conveniently sidestepped a controversy over television commercials for hard liquor. In June 1996 the liquor industry announced it would break its 48-year voluntary ban on television advertising, prompting President Clinton to call on the Federal Communications Commission to study whether such advertising harms children.
A Commerce subcommittee scheduled hearings on alcohol advertising for February 1997, then postponed them. The beer industry, fearing that any restrictions placed on hard liquor would be imposed on beer as well, lobbied feverishly to have beer advertising cut from the hearing agenda. In the end, the industry got its wish: The hearings never took place.
In 1999, McCain pushed legislation that would have authorized another round of military-base closings beginning in 2001. While the move appeared to be classic pork-busting, it had the support of top military and civilian defense officials, as well as aerospace companies that had already secured large contracts to build military aircraft and missiles.
Among the big supporters of McCain’s bill was Seattle-based Boeing Company. Boeing, which in 1997 bought its rival, McDonnell Douglas Corporation, manufactures commercial and military aircraft, missiles and space exploration equipment, defense electronic systems, and large-scale communications and information networks. Boeing is McCain’s No. 5 career patron.
Boeing maintained that closing more military bases would save billions of dollars, providing the extra money needed for new equipment and initiatives to improve national defense efforts. Defense Secretary William Cohen lobbied all year for the measure, arguing that without the savings, the Pentagon wouldn’t have the money needed in 2005 for major systems entering the production phase of development. The systems included the Army’s RAH-66 Comanche helicopter, made by Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation (a subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation) and Boeing; the Navy’s V-22 Tiltrotor, built by Bell Helicopter Textron and Boeing; and the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, produced by Boeing.
But the idea of additional base closings proved to be too politically unpalatable, and on May 26, 1999, the Senate defeated McCain’s legislation, 40-60.
McCain did better for Boeing within the Commerce Committee, where in April 1999 he introduced legislation to extend federal risk insurance to commercial satellite launchers for another 10 years. Boeing has a satellite launch unit based in Huntington Beach, California.
Under the 1984 Commercial Space Launch Act, companies insure their launches for up to $500 million in damages, while the federal government pays for any damages from $500 million to $1.5 billion. Senator Ernest Hollings, a Democrat from South Carolina, has called federal risk insurance for satellite launchers nothing more than “a subsidy to the richest industry there is.”
Boeing felt otherwise. “The legislation is critical to level the playing field with our international competition in the space launch arena,” R. Gale Schluter, a vice president of Boeing’s Expendable Launch Vehicles division, told a hearing of McCain’s committee on May 20, 1999.
Boeing executives dropped $4,000 into McCain’s campaign in the days following the hearing. On June 23, 1999, his proposal passed the Commerce Committee, but it failed to pass the Senate.
On April 29, 1997, at 9:30 a.m., Raymond Stanley, the chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe of Arizona, was due at an oversight hearing on his tribe’s water rights before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. But instead of getting into a taxicab or taking his seat in the hearing room, he was in his hotel room across town, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
A messenger had just delivered a letter from the tribe to McCain, who was to preside over the hearing. In the letter, Stanley explained that neither he nor the tribe’s vice chairman, Marvin Mull, would be appearing at the hearing.
The Apaches’ absence miffed McCain as well as J. Steven Whisler and Timothy Snider of Phelps Dodge Corporation, a copper mining and manufacturing company. (Phelps Dodge is McCain’s No. 10 career patron.) McCain’s office had invited the Phelps Dodge executives and the San Carlos Apache leaders to Washington to renegotiate a water rights agreement that would let Phelps Dodge continue to use water from Apache lands for its mine in Morenci, Arizona.
A third of all the copper in the United States comes from the Morenci mine, making Phelps Dodge the largest copper producer in North America. In 1990 the San Carlos Apaches signed an agreement with Phelps Dodge to let the company use its water. In recent years, however, the tribe has complained that Phelps Dodge was using more water and extracting more copper than intended under the 1990 agreement.
“Like its forefathers,” the tribe said in a statement, “the San Carlos Apache Tribe continues to defend its tribal homeland and water rights against outsiders who would destroy or deplete them.”
By boycotting the hearing, the Apaches hoped to force McCain and Phelps Dodge to take their concerns seriously. Water is vital to one of the tribe’s main sources of income: cattle ranching. The only other major provider of jobs on the San Carlos Apache reservation, which has an unemployment rate of 30 percent, is the federal government.
But McCain offered them little sympathy, calling their boycott “nonsensical.”
In May the tribe reluctantly returned to the bargaining table. The resulting compromise, which required congressional approval, ensured that Phelps Dodge could continue to use the tribe’s water in return for an undisclosed fee. “We were very successful,” a spokesman for Phelps Dodge told the Center.
The agreement faced one last hurdle. On May 7, 1997, McCain and John Kyl, his colleague in the Senate from Arizona, cast tie-breaking votes to approve the San Carlos Apache Tribe Water Rights Settlement. A week later Douglas Yearley, the chairman of Phelps Dodge, gave McCain a token of his appreciation: two checks for $1,000 to McCain’s 1998 Senate campaign.
In March 1999, McCain made an appearance in Alexandria, Virginia, at the home of Mary McAuliffe, a lobbyist for Union Pacific Corporation. Also there to greet him were John Angus, a lobbyist for CSX Transportation, Inc.; Pamela Garvie, a lobbyist for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation; and Wayne Valis, a lobbyist for Norfolk Southern Corporation. The guests had at least two things in common: All work for companies that operate railroads, and all gave at least $500 to McCain’s presidential campaign. Over the years, railroad interests have been kind to McCain, collectively providing him with more than $140,000 in campaign funds.
And vice versa: In the months after the Alexandria fundraiser, McCain protected the industry from new regulations.
After Congress effectively deregulated the nation’s railroad industry in 1980, shipping rates fell, as did the number of rail accidents. But as railroad companies have merged, businesses that rely on rail transport have complained that they are increasingly at the mercy of regional monopolies. In 1980 there were 60 major rail carriers; today there are nine, and just four of them account for 90 percent of the industry’s freight revenue. Union Pacific Railroad Company’s acquisition of Southern Pacific Transportation Company in 1997, which made Union Pacific the nation’s largest rail earner, brought with it renewed calls for legislation to force competition on the industry.
In June 1999 several members of the Senate Commerce Committee, including John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV of West Virginia and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, introduced legislation that would force railroad companies to let competitors use their tracks, thus giving shippers a choice of carriers. Lobbyists for the shipping and railroad industries tried to work out a compromise, but the railroad companies refused to budge. They didn’t have to: They had an ace in the hole.
Two months after he clinked glasses with railroad industry lobbyists in Alexandria, McCain introduced legislation to reauthorize the Surface Transportation Board, the federal agency that oversees the railroad and trucking industries. His bill completely ignored the shippers’ concerns. It was going to be that, McCain let it be known, or, as a lobbyist for the shippers later recalled, “nothing at all.”
In February 1999, McCain took a testing-the-waters trip for a presidential bid. But he didn’t trek through the snowy fields of Iowa or the meeting houses of New Hampshire. Instead he headed straight for Las Vegas.
Within days of his visit, Terrence Lanni, the chairman of MGM Grand, Inc., and Steve Wynn, the chairman of Mirage Resorts, Inc., each wrote out $1,000 checks, as did their wives, to McCain’s presidential campaign.
It wasn’t the first time the gambling industry has put money on McCain. McCain has collected more than $100,000 in contributions from gambling interests since 1993, and he’s returned the financial favors in ways big and small. In June 1998, McCain voted for legislation to overhaul the Internal Revenue Service that included a tax exemption for the casino industry for free meals it gives to workers. The exemption is projected to cost the U.S. Treasury $316 million from 1998 to 2007. In 1995, McCain supported legislation that paved the way for gambling “cruises to nowhere.” Even during his battle to pass tobacco legislation, McCain found a way to help the gambling industry: At the urging of the American Gaming Association, he agreed to exempt gambling establishments from his bill’s ban on indoor smoking.
In the summer of 1999, as legislation vital to gambling interests made its way through Congress, McCain tapped into Nevada and Native American gambling interests for contributions to his presidential campaign. On June 10, for example, he returned to Las Vegas for a fundraiser organized by Lanni, where he rubbed elbows with Peter Boynton, the chairman of Caesar’s World/Inc.; Sheldon Adelson, the chairman of Las Vegas Sands, Inc.; and David J. Thompson, the chairman of Mikohn Gaming Corporation, a Las Vegas company that makes slot machines and other gambling equipment. The event netted McCain $51,150.
A few weeks later, on June 30, McCain headed for the woods of Ledyard, Connecticut, to collect another $14,650 at a fundraiser hosted by the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Nation. The 155-member tribe runs Foxwoods Resort, the world’s largest casino.
McCain has opposed legislation that would halt the further expansion of gambling on Indian reservations. Under the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, Native American tribes have to reach an agreement with states about how to regulate their gaming operations. Today, 183 tribes run 263 gambling operations in 28 states, most under tribal-state compacts. But one upshot of the 1988 law is that states that want to keep Indian tribes from opening gambling operations can simply refuse to negotiate. Tribes used to take uncooperative states to court; then, however, the Supreme Court ruled that states are immune from such lawsuits. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt tried to give tribes relief by proposing that his office settle tribal-state disputes over gambling compacts. Congress didn’t like Babbitt’s idea and imposed a one-year moratorium on any new Indian gambling operations outside of state compacts.
Nevada gambling operators, who see the tribes as competition, prefer leaving the states in charge. In September 1998, at the industry’s behest, Senators Harry Reid of Nevada and Mike Enzi of Wyoming introduced a measure to stop Secretary Babbitt from stepping into tribal-state disputes.
The prospect of letting states keep their veto power over Indian gambling sent some tribes running straight for their checkbooks. From September 22 to October 6, 1998, the Mashantucket Pequots gave McCain $9,500. McCain opposed Reid and Enzi’s effort, calling it “unwarranted” and “ill-advised.”
On February 11, 1999, members of the Senate Commerce Committee marked up a bill to loosen restrictions on flights to and from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, just outside the nation’s capital. “If we do not pass this legislation, it will be another clear victory for the major airlines and the special interests in Washington, which will not surprise me,” the bill’s sponsor, committee chairman John McCain, told his colleagues. “Nor will it be the first time or the last time. I intend to try to look out for the American consumer.”
Experts disagree on whether adding flights at the National Airport would result in lower airfares, but one thing is certain: If passed, the measure would boost the fortunes of America West Airlines, which is based in Phoenix. McCain has angrily denied he is shilling for America West, but for more than a decade his efforts to increase the number of flights at National Airport have gone hand in hand with those of the airline, which employs about 9,000 Arizona residents. Over the years, the airline’s executives and other employees have given McCain at least $17,150 in political contributions.
One of the few airlines to get off the ground after Congress deregulated the industry in 1978, America West grew to become the nation’s ninth-largest commercial carrier in part by aggressively acquiring landing and takeoff rights, commonly known as “slots,” at the nation’s four busiest airports: La Guardia and John F. Kennedy International in New York City, O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, and National. Since the 1960s, a “high density rule” has limited the number of flights the four airports can handle, and a “perimeter rule” has limited nonstop flights to and from National to 1,250 miles. The purpose of the rules is to control congestion and noise levels.
The rules, however, prevented America West from expanding service to the East Coast. And so, in 1987, the airline petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration to force airlines to give up slots that they barely used.
McCain has been advancing America West’s agenda on Capitol Hill ever since. In 1988 he pushed through legislation that required the FAA to redo its slot regulations. The FAA complied, and by the end of 1993, thanks to a combination of the new rule, exemptions granted by the FAA, and slots wrested from other airlines, America West had secured takeoff and landing rights at the four busiest airports.
But the additional slots didn’t solve all of America West’s problems. After posting poor earnings in 1996, the airline launched a two-year campaign to expand its service. But the perimeter rule still prevented America West from offering nonstop service from Phoenix to Washington, a lucrative route that attracts high-paying business customers.
On May 21, 1998, William Franke, the chairman of America West Holdings Corporation (the holding company for the airline), told a reporter for The Arizona Republic, “Washington National would be really significant. We’ve been working hard at trying to get the perimeter rule amended.”
A few weeks later McCain pulled out all the stops to get a bill through the Senate to change the perimeter rule at National. He squashed opposition from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority by threatening to hold up the Senate’s approval of three appointees to the panel. When his bill faced opposition in the House, McCain took funds for airport construction hostage. He refused to relinquish the funds even after the House version of his proposal died.
McCain’s hardball tactics paid off in October 1999, when the Senate approved his proposal to open up 24 new slots at National Airport and to lift perimeter restrictions for half of those flights.
Through it all, McCain, who’s made something of a name for himself as a “pork-buster,” has insisted that his only goal is to improve competition in the airline industry. But even executives of America West acknowledge that few other carriers would benefit from McCain’s bill.
“Other than America West and what we’re doing, there aren’t that many that qualify,” Michael Conway, a co-founder of America West who recently started National Airline out of Las Vegas, told a reporter in March 1999.
Under McCain’s proposal, America West could also keep exemptions to airport restrictions it already has — exemptions McCain won at the behest of John Timmons, America West’s chief lobbyist. “It’s hard for me to understand why McCain should get any more of a bum rap than Jim Moran or Connie Morella [two Washington-area lawmakers] should get,” Timmons later told a reporter, “because they’re shilling for their people as much as McCain’s shilling for his people.”
Timmons should know. Before he became a lobbyist in 1994, he worked for 11 years as McCain’s legislative director.
Top Ten Career Patrons
1. U S West, Denver
$107,520
2. Hensley & Company, Phoenix, Arizona
$80,300
3. AT&T Corporation and affiliated companies, New York
$72,250
4. Viacom, Inc., and affiliated companies, New York
$61,750
5. The Boeing Company and affiliated companies, Seattle
$61,400
6. BellSouth Corporation, Atlanta
$60,000
7. Del Webb Corporation, Phoenix, Arizona
$56,535
8. Bank of America and affiliated companies, Charlotte, North Carolina
$55,218
9. Motorola, Inc., Schaumburg, Illinois
$49,045
10. Phelps Dodge Corporation, Phoenix, Arizona
$47,100
This list is based on individual and PAC contributions to McCain’s House cam¬paigns from 1981-1986, contributions to the McCain PAC from 1985-1988; individual and PAC contributions to McCain’s Senate campaigns from 1985 through June 30, 1999, and individual and PAC contributions to McCain’s presidential campaign through June 30, 1999.
Sources: Federal Election Commission; Center for Responsive Politics
1. Includes contributions from employees of U S West and its predecessor, Mountain Bell.
3. Includes contributions from employees of AT&T and its subsidiaries, including TCI; Liberty Media; Vanguard Cellular, and TelePort Communications.
4. Includes contributions from employees of Viacom and its subsidiaries, including Paramount Pictures (formerly Paramount Communications); Paramount Parks; Showtime Networks; MTV Networks; Nickelodeon; Spelling Entertainment; and World Vision Enterprises.
5. Includes contributions from employees of Boeing; McDonnell Douglas; and Rockwell International. Boeing acquired the defense and aerospace units of Rockwell in 1996, and it acquired McDonnell Douglas in 1997.
6. Includes contributions from employees of BellSouth; employees of its predecessor, Southern Bell; and employees of L.M. Berry & Company, which BellSouth acquired in 1986.
7. Includes contributions from employees of Del Webb, and from employees of Coventry Homes and Sun City Grand, both of which are owned by Del Webb.
8. Includes contributions from employees of Bank of America and the compa¬nies that have contributed to its creation, including NationsBank; Security Pacific Corporation; Arizona Bank; Barnett Banks; and Boatmen’s Bancshares.
NOTE: Individuals associated with Charles Keating-led companies, including American Continental Corp., Lincoln S&L, Continental American Securities, and Continental Homes, have given $112,000 to McCain, enough to place first on his career patron list. However, after the Keating Five scandal, McCain returned these contributions to the U.S. Treasury.
Books
The Buying of the President 2004
Introduction
Equal Rights, Unequal Protection
Private Parties
George W. Bush - The Texas Years
George W. Bush - The War President
George W. Bush - The Administration
Wesley Clark
Howard Dean
John Edwards
Richard Gephardt
Bob Graham
John Kerry
Dennis Kucinich
Joe Lieberman
Carol Moseley Braun
Al Sharpton
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
The Buying of the President 2000
Introduction
The Democratic Party
The Reform Party
The Republican Party
Bill Bradley
Albert Gore, Jr.
Gary Bauer
George W. Bush
Elizabeth Dole
Malcolm “Steve” Forbes, Jr.
Orrin Hatch
Alan Keyes
John McCain
Dan Quayle
Patrick Buchanan
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
The Buying of the President 1996
Foreword
Introduction
Party Animals
Bill Clinton
Bob Dole
Bob Dornan
Alan Keyes
Patrick J. Buchanan
Phil Gramm
Lamar Alexander
Pete Wilson
Arlen Specter
Richard G. Lugar
Wild Cards
Concluding Thoughts
Author’s Note
Reports
Private Parties
Introduction
The Parties in Perspective
Democratic National Committee Chairmen
Republican National Committee Chairmen
Under the Influence 1991
Introduction
Jerry Brown
Bill Clinton
Tom Harkin
Bob Kerrey
Paul Tsongas
Pat Buchanan
George Bush
Under the Influence 1996
Introduction
Bill Clinton
Lamar Alexander
Pat Buchanan
Robert Dole
Robert Dornan
Malcolm “Steve” Forbes
Phil Gramm
Alan Keyes
Richard Lugar
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“Dsimiss Senator Clinton and her supporters at your own peril there guy.”
What, are Clinton supporters going to have me killed for supporting Obama?
“There’s nothing I would like better than a brokered convention where the superdelegates hand the nomination to Hillary. Democrats can say goodbye to the black vote for a generation, and without that block of votes,”
Black people would turn on the Democratic party for a generation over Obama just because he is black?
My response is.. “Oh well”.
Racism isn’t any prettier in reverse. Obama does not get to be the defacto nominee just because he is black.
Too, you overestimate the impact of some sort of black exodus. Particularly with the desperate situation the cons are in.
If Senator Clinton can win the nomination within the rules it is hers. No matter who doesn’t like it.
Michelle opened herself up to comment when she decided to speak publicly for him. Now boo-hoo-Obama wants to cry because of her decision? Guess we know who’s wearing the pants in that family.
BlueJay - that arguement cuts both ways: “Obama does not get to be the defacto nominee just because he is black.” And Clinton does not get to be the niminee just because she is female.
“If Senator Clinton can win the nomination within the rules it is hers. No matter who doesn’t like it.”
here I am with you. However, the rules said no premature primaries for MI and FL. So, if Clinton gets the nomination via smoke-filled back rooms then it will look like she did it OUTSIDE of the rules.
So, I keep coming back to McAuliffe - she must get a plurality of the popular vote.
“If Senator Clinton can win the nomination within the rules it is hers.”
Dang big if, there.
And that, WSC and BlueJay, is my big point. Plurality of popular vote is a necessary condition.
CaptAmerica: Some of those guys who were charged with trading with the enemy were also sucessful in getting compensation after the war for damages done by Allied bomging to their investments ie., war making capabilities for the 3rd Reich. This was kept quiet. After WW1 Vickers the UK armaments giant, sued Krupp for non payment of royalites on fuses Krupp made for use in German artillery shells. Imagine an English company getting paid every time a Kraut exploded artillery against their own countrymen..and they won! After WW1 the UK turned sharply to the left when all the monetary horrors came out.
Phantom: That might be the longest post I have seen.
FYI, that is why most considerate folks use links; so we don’t make people scroll over for five minutes.
“Obama has too much communism in him.”
And what does Obama’s statement about SUV’s, eating and thermostats have to do with Communism?
Ah, Clark, let him keep putting gas in that “van” and paying for that thermostat setting. It’s his right. But the first time he doesn’t get his belly full because he can’t afford all the groceries as he did in the past and does now, then he may learn the why’s and wherefore’s. Some people (including me at times) have to learn lessons the hard way. And those are the best and most remembered lessons of all.
Oh, and “Communism” is a word that’s supposed to make us all see “red”. ;)
GMC70,
“If Cindy McCain makes speeches on behalf of her husband, yes, she’s fair game too. Good for the goose, and all that. I haven’t seen her making speeches on behalf of John McCain, though she may have. As I understand it, Cindy and John McCain’s financial lives have always been separate (always filed separate tax returns, etc). She’s entitled to keep here private life private, at least until she interjects herself into the campaign. As far as flying John around, I’ve seen nothing but allegations on this blog on that. Of course, MH, if you told me sky was blue, I’d go doublecheck.”
To say that Cindy McCain isn’t “campaigning” is, well, ludicrous and misleading. Cindy McCain has absolutely been front and center, and she’s been making political attacks as well–on Michelle Obama. Remember this one from back in February?
“In a rare move, Cindy McCain, wife of the Arizona senator, took on Michelle Obama’s comment Tuesday as she introduced her husband at a rally. “I’m proud of my country, I don’t know if you heard those words earlier. I’m very proud of my country,” she said.
The Arizona senator also made a subtle dig at Michelle Obama’s comments during his victory speech Tuesday night.
“I have never lived a day, in good times or bad, that I haven’t been proud of the privilege” of being an American, McCain said in Columbus, Ohio.”
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/02/mccain-vs-obama.html
Seems to me, GMC70, that Beer Girl, her millions, her tax returns, her history of drug addiction and theft from charitable organizations, and John McCain’s use of his Senatorial privilege to shield her from suffering the consequences of her wrongdoing ALL should be on the table. Why haven’t they been? Guess that’s the perk of being Mister Free Ride.
I do wonder what’s behind Obama’s veiled threat. Given that he has VERY effectively busted McCain’s chops, one has to wonder what could be waiting in the wings.
And here’s the whole expose’ as to Cindy McCain’s drug addiction and theft from a charitable organization for which she worked, and the backstory of how the McCain machine illegally tried to silence a whistleblower.
“What McEachern and the others didn’t know was that, far from being a simple, honest admission designed to clear her conscience and help other addicts, Cindy McCain’s storytelling had been orchestrated by Jay Smith, then John McCain’s Washington campaign media advisor. And it was intended to divert attention from a different story, a story that was getting quite messy.
I know, because I had been working on that story for months at Phoenix New Times. I had finally tracked down the public records that confirmed Cindy McCain’s addiction and much more, and the McCains knew I was about to get them. Cindy’s tale was released on the day the records were made public.
But the story I was pursuing was not so much about Cindy McCain’s unfortunate addiction. It was much more about her efforts to keep that story from coming to light, and the possible manipulation of the criminal justice system by her husband and his cohorts. The irony is that Cindy’s secret would have stayed secret if John McCain’s heavy-hitting lawyer, John Dowd (of D.C.’s Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld; his most recent claim to fame was serving as co-counsel for fellow partner Vernon Jordan during impeachment) hadn’t heavy-handedly pulled out all the stops to protect the McCain family.
Dowd tried to get back at the man on Cindy McCain’s staff, Tom Gosinski, who had blown the whistle on her drug pilfering to the DEA. But in the course of trying to get local law enforcement officials to investigate Gosinski — Dowd and the McCains considered him an extortionist; others might call him a whistleblower — Dowd set in motion a process that would eventually bring the whole sordid story to light. When that maneuver backfired, the McCain media machine went into overdrive to spin the story.
It’s a story of unintended consequences. It’s also a story of power politics and media manipulation that’s very un-McCain-like — if you believe his national media hagiography.
But both of Cindy McCain’s staged, teary drug-addiction confessions have been vintage John McCain. His MO is this: Get the story out — even if it’s a negative story. Get it out first, with the spin you want, with the details you want and without the details you don’t want.
McCain did it with the Keating Five, and with the story of the failure of his first marriage (Cindy is his second wife). So what you recall after the humble, honest interview, is not that McCain did favors for savings and loan failure Charlie Keating, or that he cheated on his wife, but instead what an upfront, righteous guy he is.
Candor is the McCain trademark, but what the journalists who slobber over the senator fail to realize is that the candor is premeditated and polished. John McCain shoots from the hip — but only after carefully rehearsing the battle plan, to be sure he won’t get shot himself.
This is the story of a time that strategy backfired, and yet the McCain machine still managed to contain the damage.”
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/10/18/drugs/print.html
I’m going to post this again, and again, and again. It testifies to the reality behind the facade that Free Ride presents to the world.
This passage, in particular, bears repeating:
“Candor is the McCain trademark, but what the journalists who slobber over the senator fail to realize is that the candor is premeditated and polished. John McCain shoots from the hip — but only after carefully rehearsing the battle plan, to be sure he won’t get shot himself.”
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.
“That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen,” he added.
If any American reads this and isn’t very worried about an Obama presidency they are just too stupid to vote.
Cf you and Phantom should write a book. Just be sure to fact check it. You are deluded.
okobserver,
Got nothin’, I see. You appear to argue as poorly as Oklahomans drive.
Whenever a Texan moves to Oklahoma, it raises the IQ of BOTH states. So do us Kansans a favor, and don’t drive down our state IQ by moving here.
Hey CF, you know what separates an idiot from a Texan?
The Red River!
(rimshot)
okobserver,
Coming from a state–namely, Oklahoma–run by energy Nazis like Aubrey McClendon, dictated to by fascist propagandists like the Gaylord family, and represented in the Senate by a money whore like James Inhofe and a nutcase like Tom Coburn, you aren’t really in what I’d call a strong position to call anybody else “deluded.”
““We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.”
Funny thing, no one has refuted the truth of that yet. Just cheap shots.
oh, and the red baiting.
BOO!
Cf when you can’t refute facts then throw out garbage. Bought my gas in Ok today twelve cents cheaper than KS. Whats that tell ya? You guys just keep voting in those big spending democrats just don’t think smart people will set by and let it happen nationally. Obama wants to take a vote from other countries about our lifestyle. No WAY.
Oh, and CF, dont forget Oklahoma state senator sally kern. AND she has a gay son. That must make for fun Thanksgivings…
Hear her screed here:
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4711
“You guys just keep voting in those big spending democrats”
Uh, the last I heard, the REPUBLICANS were in charge of both houses in Kansas.
But thanks for playing. Your ignorance is as breath taking as boxlick’s.
“keep voting in those big spending democrats”
As opposed to the big spending Republics that are responsible for 75% of the national debt.
Ksfrmgrl what is to refute? Do other countries get to tell us how to live. Whose standard do we use? Will be go back to living in mud huts because several countries do you know?
“Will be go back to living in mud huts because several countries do you know?”
Jeez, that post was even dumber than those from Boxlock and Max the Hater.
WS do you live in lala land all of the time on just when talking politics?
KSfrmgrl I don’t care if they are republicans or democrats they are set to tax us to death.
Well man when our would be president says we can’t do anything other countries don’t agree with where do you think it is heading? Or have you thought this out?
Then why did you single out democrats in your post?
Flamebait much?
Here’s all you need to know about Sally Kern. She was born in Arkansas and is married to the PASTOR of Olivet Baptist Church.
Like I said, the meanest people I know…
“WS do you live in lala land all of the time on just when talking politics?”
Well, well, well……………….. three Republic presidents are responsible for 75% of the National Debt.
Got any REAL numbers to dispute that fact?
Moron.
“says we can’t do anything other countries don’t agree with”
THAT is not what he said. You are SERIOUSLY in need of remedial reading.
And lessons on NOT lying. That is just a LIE!
Well WSClark I do deny those numbers. But guys like you don’t want facts you just want to make your own facts.
“Will be go back to living in mud huts because several countries do you know?”
That doesnt even make sense. But.. that’s what I have come to expect from the ignorant and the bigoted.
Thanks for confirming you are both.
“Well WSClark I do deny those numbers.”
Well, bonehead, show us the CORRECT numbers….
So if you dispute Clark’s facts, why dont you provide some of your own?
Too stupid to use the google? Or too lazy?
Or jesus told you not to touch it?
^5 CLARK!
Indeed, some people may be too stupid to vote, and then again, some folks are so stupid they shouldnt BREED.
Sometimes, a little chlorine in the shallow end of the gene pool wouldnt be a bad thing…
WSClark
Posted May 19, 2008 at 8:36 pm | Permalink
“WS do you live in lala land all of the time on just when talking politics?”
Well, well, well……………….. three Republic presidents are responsible for 75% of the National Debt.
Got any REAL numbers to dispute that fact?
Moron.
————————
Last time I looked, Congress controls the purse strings of the nation, not the President.
Moron
And how much did they run up the deficit between 95 and 07?
“Last time I looked, Congress controls the purse strings of the nation, not the President.”
Jeez, did Reagan, Bush the Smarter and Bush the Dumber lose their veto pens?
At least had an excuse for losing his pen.
And how many bills did Bush the Dumber veto during the era when the Republics controlled both Houses of Congress (during his first six years?)
Spin all you want, McLiar, the jokes on you.
okobserver,
You’re right: gas IS an average of twelve cents cheaper in Oklahoma than in Kansas, although from where I’m sitting in Norman, OK, right now, it’s $3.59/gal.
And you know what that means, okobserver? Oklahoma’s roads SUCK. Drive I-35 south; as soon as you cross the state line, smooth blacktop becomes scraggly-ass pothole hell. And that’s true across the board.
Or, for that matter, look at how badly the state has designed and built freeway on-ramps and exit lanes. Trying to save some money, perhaps?
Ever think, okobserver, that MAYBE some states know how to actually provide SERVICES and INFRASTRUCTURE for their citizens, rather than for the sons and daughers of privilege who dictate to everyone else how they ought to live?
Taxes pay for stuff. Adults realize that and deal with it. Evidently, that seems to be a bit of a reach for you.
First off if the economy of Oklahoma had been one quarter of that of Wichita I would still be living there.
I loved Oklahoma but pass is pass and now I am back in Kansas and will stay unless I win the lottery and then I promise to visit Kansas. That or move to western Kansas and eat at the best restaurant everyday that fried chicken is on the menu!
America needs to get back to being the world leader in technology, innovation and at the forefront of energy usage. That is the way it should be and is where the true power of this nation was and made us the shining light. We do not need to be fat and stupid consumers, that would mean we are disenable.
“America needs to get back to being the world leader in technology, innovation and at the forefront of energy usage. That is the way it should be and is where the true power of this nation was and made us the shining light.”
Well said Dog.
And we need to fulfill the promise of “equal justice for all” instead of being thugs in the world and bigots to our own people.
How true farm girl, there are many ingredients to what made this country great.
I prefer this Ok Observer:
http://www.okobserver.net/
A courageous voice of opposition to the Gaylord dynasty.
I love Capn’s defense of Obama - tell a story about GW’s Grandfather!
BJ is finally accepting Clinton for the VP role.
Big step for you BJ.
Hardly “Max”