The McCain campaign has already fired four top aides and the man picked to manage the Republican National Convention because they were lobbyists with awkward clients in their past. Complicating matters is Charles Black, McCain’s senior strategist, whose work on behalf of some nefarious international thugs has prompted calls for his resignation.
Today, however, the story manages to get even worse for McCain, as his campaign manager, lobbyist Rick Davis, takes center stage.
The delicate task of writing and enforcing the new conflict-of-interest policy has fallen to Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, who was himself a lobbyist until he took a leave of absence from his firm, Davis Manafort, two years ago.
In 2005, Mr. Davis was registered as a lobbyist for corporate clients like the telecommunications company Verizon. Under the campaign’s new rules, issued by Mr. Davis on Thursday, lobbyists who are currently registered either for American companies or for foreign governments or businesses cannot be employed by the campaign. They must also disclose their lobbying work even if they are working for Mr. McCain on a part-time, voluntary basis.
But while Mr. Davis took a leave from Davis Manafort in 2006, the company has developed a specialty in recent years in a type of lobbying for which firms do not have to register — namely, representing the interests abroad of foreign politicians and businessmen.
In recent years, the company’s clients have included the richest man in Ukraine and a former premier of that country whose opponents were supported by Mr. McCain. The Washington Post reported in January that Mr. Davis also set up a meeting in Switzerland in 2006 between Mr. McCain and a Russian businessman, who has been barred from entering this country, apparently because of accusations about past ties to organized crime in Russia. That businessman, Oleg Deripaska, has denied such links.
Well, isn’t that clever. McCain’s campaign manager figured out a way to lobby for shady foreign characters without actually registering as a lobbyist.
Wait, it gets worse.
The NYT report added:
The lobbying clout of Mr. Davis, the campaign manager, derives from his longtime Washington connections, which he drew attention to as recently as three years ago.
In January 2005, he apparently pitched executives of Pegasus Capital Advisors, a private investment firm in Cos Cob, Conn., on the idea of putting money into a new firm in which he would be a partner, documents indicate. He told Pegasus Capital’s representatives that experienced “Washington insiders” like him could use their ties to advance the interests of companies seeking federal contracts, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. A spokesman for Pegasus did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
The proposal never bore fruit. But it came at the same time Mr. Davis was lobbying the Defense Department on behalf of Imagesat, an Israeli company that sells satellite imagery in which Pegasus Capital had invested. He was also then drawing a salary as the part-time president of the Reform Institute, a Washington group Mr. McCain helped found to champion ideals like reducing “the influence of special interests” in politics and government (emphasis added).
Honestly, you just can’t make stuff like this up.
A few other angles to this controversy to keep in mind this afternoon:
* Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s top foreign policy adviser, has worked as a lobbyist for foreign governments, and was a registered foreign agent while working for the McCain campaign.
* MoveOn.org is still taking on the campaign over Charlie Black. Those are some pretty powerful ads.
* Michael Crowley argues that the controversy is taking its toll on the McCain campaign.
* The number of lobbyists either working for McCain, raising money for McCain, or both, is still 115, even after the recent departures.
* And some McCain insiders are wondering how they fell into this mess in the first place.
Some of McCain’s advisers said Monday they are mystified by the new policy, which they said gives Obama an opening to attack their candidate.
“The most interesting thing in every campaign is the self-inflicted wound. This is a great case,” said one GOP fundraiser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss McCain’s campaign decisions candidly. “When asked to name the 10,000 things people think are the most important issue, this doesn’t make the list.”
Another adviser said: “There’s scratching of heads. What is going on? Why are we doing this?”
It’s true; the McCain gang just walked into this one. They never vetted aides, they never thought to check client lists, and then when confronted, they started purging lobbyists-turned-aides without thinking about the implications.
This isn’t going away.