The first major general-election “contrast” ad from the Obama campaign emphasized a fairly straightforward tagline: “After one president in the pocket of big oil, we can’t afford another.”
As if on cue, we’re learning quite a bit about John McCain’s generous benefactors from the oil industry.
Senator John McCain received a burst of donations in June from oil company employees after he came out in favor of offshore drilling, according to a report released last week by Campaign Money Watch, a watchdog organization.
But the largest collective response from a single company, the report noted, came from the Hess Corporation. Together, Hess employees or their relatives poured out more than $300,000 to Mr. McCain’s joint fund-raising committee with the Republican National Committee in June, according to campaign finance records.
On Monday, after the Web site, Talking Points Memo, listed the names of the Hess contributors, scrutiny fell on a couple, Alice Rocchio, who is identified in campaign finance records as an office manager at Hess, and her husband, Pasquale, who is listed as a foreman at Amtrak. They each gave a whopping $28,500 to Mr. McCain and the Republican National Committee.
Ms. Rocchio said in a telephone interview that she had made the contribution on her own and no one at the company had reimbursed her for it but declined to explain further.
The Rocchios also maxed out in McCain contributions in the primaries and in the general election, for a combined total of over $66,000.
Not bad for a couple that rents a home in a working class community in Queens — and which has never before made a contribution to a federal candidate or party committee.
That the Rocchios’ $57,000 contribution was made on the exact same day as nine other Hess execs and Hess family members contributed to the McCain/RNC fund only helps raise eyebrows further.
The WaPo added, online:
Rocchio is not the only person employed by Hess who made a large contribution to McCain. In addition to the top exectives, Charles Harris, who lists his occupation as a “driver” for Hess, gave $2,300 to the presumptive Republican nominee in March.
Greg Sargent pondered just how many other “low-level Hess employees maxed out straight to the McCain campaign.” Good question.
DDay added:
It’s entirely possible these contributions are legitimate and that Hess staffers just love McCain ever since he flipped on drilling. That’s the charitable explanation. The bad one is illegal straw contributions from oil companies, and McCain’s track record on campaign finance in this election (he’s actually breaking the law as we speak) is not good.
It’s well-established that the McCain campaign is crawling with lobbyists and deeply corrupted by their influence, with the new set of positions matching the concerns of the new corporate contributors. This set of oil company donations is the most vibrant example, and so it makes the most sense to continue on the offense and keep pointing them out.
To be sure, if — and at this point, it’s only an “if” — Hess played fast and loose with campaign finance law to “help” lower-level employees back the candidate willing to do the oil industry’s bidding from the White House, it doesn’t necessarily mean McCain’s campaign broke the law. It just means it took some legally dubious contributions.
It would, however, reinforce the notion that Big Oil has picked their guy in this presidential race, and are attempting to buy John McCain. If Obama’s message is that we can’t afford another president in Big Oil’s back pocket, suspicious oil-industry fundraising only helps make the argument more compelling.