The Republican establishment was surprised this week when John McCain passed over Paul Manafort as his national convention manager, instead tapping Doug Goodyear, CEO of the Washington-based DCI Group lobbying/consulting firm. It was part of a disconcerting pattern — McCain rails against the influence of powerful corporate lobbyists, but surrounds himself with nothing but powerful corporate lobbyists.
It turned out to be an even worse decision than the Republicans realized. This piece from Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff went online yesterday afternoon.
Goodyear is CEO of DCI Group, a consulting firm that earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients.
Potentially more problematic: the firm was paid $348,000 in 2002 to represent Burma’s military junta, which had been strongly condemned by the State Department for its human-rights record and remains in power today. Justice Department lobbying records show DCI pushed to “begin a dialogue of political reconciliation” with the regime. It also led a PR campaign to burnish the junta’s image, drafting releases praising Burma’s efforts to curb the drug trade and denouncing “falsehoods” by the Bush administration that the regime engaged in rape and other abuses.
Given what we’ve seen of the Burma military junta’s brutality, hiring the guy who runs the junta’s lobbying firm to be the Republicans’ national convention manager didn’t seem like an especially good idea.
Apparently, the McCain campaign couldn’t think of a compelling defense for this.
Just five hours after the Newsweek story was published online, and just a week after he was hired to run the GOP convention, Goodyear was gone.
Shortly after 5:00 p.m. this afternoon, the Republican National Convention announced that it had accepted Goodyear’s resignation, setting a new land speed record for shortest time lapsed between the “story breaks” and “ax falls” phases of a political scandal. “Today I offered the convention my resignation so as not to become a distraction in this campaign,” said Goodyear in written statement. “I continue to strongly support John McCain for president, and wish him the best of luck in this campaign.” Asked later by the Politico whether Team McCain had given him the boot, Goodyear said no. “My decision,” he added. “[It was] unambiguously the right thing to do.”
Ironically enough, though, Goodyear defended his involvement with the brutal Burmese regime in Isikoff’s original story. “It was our only foreign representation, it was for a short tenure, and it was six years ago,” he told NEWSWEEK at the time, adding that the junta’s record in the current cyclone crisis is “reprehensible.”
Funny how the spotlight changes things.
As it turns out, this story actually gets worse. McCain preferred Goodyear for the job, as opposed to the establishment pick of Paul Manafort because — get this — McCain was worried about some of Manafort’s lobbying clients.
The prospect of choosing Manafort created anxiety in the campaign because of his long history of representing controversial foreign clients, including Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. More recently, he served as chief political consultant to Viktor Yanukovich, the former Ukrainian prime minister who has been widely criticized for alleged corruption and for his close ties to Russia’s Vladimir Putin — a potential embarrassment for McCain, who in 2007 called Putin a “totalitarian dictator.” “The Ukrainian stuff was viewed as too much,” says one McCain strategist, who asked not to be identified discussing the matter.
I see. When picking a manager for the Republican convention, McCain had to choose between a corporate lobbyist who represented brutal totalitarian regimes and another corporate lobbyist who represented brutal totalitarian regimes.
It’s quite an operation McCain’s running over there, isn’t it?