Given that lobbyists are already running practically his entire campaign operation, John McCain probably didn’t need yet another corporate lobbyist taking on a key campaign role. And yet, he has a new one anyway.
Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has engaged a leading GOP lobbyist to coordinate his message and travel schedule with congressional Republicans — the most concrete sign yet that the biggest battleground in the 2008 presidential race may not be Pennsylvania or Ohio or Florida’s I-4 corridor but rather the floor of the United States Senate.
John Green, a founding partner of what is now Ogilvy Government Relations, will soon take a leave of absence from that firm to work as a full-time liaison between McCain’s presidential campaign and Republicans in the House and the Senate, according to GOP aides on Capitol Hill and McCain surrogates downtown. Green, a Mississippi native, has strong ties in the Senate after his years of work for former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), a vocal McCain supporter who left Congress late last year to set up his own lobbying shop.
Green is part of a small cadre of lobbyists who have met regularly to help build support for McCain on Capitol Hill. The group, which includes fellow Ogilvy partner Wayne Berman, has been helping the senator secure congressional endorsements in recent weeks to ensure he solidifies his status as the GOP front-runner.
I keep thinking about David Brooks’ column from about a week ago, in which the NYT writer took Barack Obama to task — literally, mocking him — for accusing McCain of “being too close to lobbyists.” Brooks dismissed the charge as ridiculous, and praised McCain for fighting lobbyists, instead of embracing them.
And with each passing day, Brooks’ analysis looks a little sillier. McCain bringing on a corporate lobbyist to coordinate his message and travel schedule with congressional Republicans is just the latest example.
In just the last week or so, we’ve learned that 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. The WaPo reported:
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?