John McCain’s website tells visitors, “Too often the special interest lobbyists with the fattest wallets and best access carry the day.” That, apparently, is especially true of the lobbyists who dominate McCain’s campaign staff, at least one of whom does lobbying work directly from McCain’s bus.
Of all the lobbyists involved in the McCain campaign, the most prominent is [Charles] Black, who has made a lucrative career of shuttling back and forth between presidential politics and big-time Washington lobbying…. [E]ven as Black provides a private voice and a public face for McCain, he also leads his lobbying firm, which offers corporate interests and foreign governments the promise of access to the most powerful lawmakers. Some of those companies have interests before the Senate and, in particular, the Commerce Committee, of which McCain is a member.
Black said he does a lot of his work by telephone from McCain’s Straight Talk Express bus.
So, let’s see if we have this straight. John McCain, the “reform”-minded Republican who decries the power and influence of lobbyists, not only has more lobbyists working on his staff or as advisers than any of his competitors from either party, he actually has a corporate lobbyist doing business directly aboard his campaign bus.
McCain’s signature legislative accomplishment after a quarter-century in Washington is legislation to weaken the power of special interests. It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it?
The rest of the Post article drives the broader point home.
For years, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has railed against lobbyists and the influence of “special interests” in Washington, touting on his campaign Web site his fight against “the ‘revolving door’ by which lawmakers and other influential officials leave their posts and become lobbyists for the special interests they have aided.”
But when McCain huddled with his closest advisers at his rustic Arizona cabin last weekend to map out his presidential campaign, virtually every one was part of the Washington lobbying culture he has long decried. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, co-founded a lobbying firm whose clients have included Verizon and SBC Telecommunications. His chief political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., is chairman of one of Washington’s lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T, Alcoa, JPMorgan and U.S. Airways.
Senior advisers Steve Schmidt and Mark McKinnon work for firms that have lobbied for Land O’ Lakes, UST Public Affairs, Dell and Fannie Mae.
The WaPo added, “In McCain’s case, the fact that lobbyists are essentially running his presidential campaign — most of them as volunteers — seems to some people to be at odds with his anti-lobbying rhetoric.” Ya think?
McCain added yesterday that no one should be concerned about any of this, because the army of lobbyists he’s surrounded himself with are “honorable.”
What a relief. I was afraid that the corporate lobbyists that make up the Republican’s team were the dishonorable kind, but with a compelling argument like McCain’s, there are obviously no grounds for concern.
One thing’s for sure: McCain will have the “more of the same” vote completely locked up in the fall.