{"id":3689,"date":"2005-03-08T10:33:18","date_gmt":"2005-03-08T15:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3689.html"},"modified":"2005-03-08T10:33:18","modified_gmt":"2005-03-08T15:33:18","slug":"mccain-has-some-explaining-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/mccain-has-some-explaining-to-do\/","title":{"rendered":"McCain has some explaining to do"},"content":{"rendered":"

It may not be entirely fair, but when one holds himself or oneself out as Mr. Clean, it’s inevitable that he or she will be held to a higher standard. That’s why when we hear about a senator promoting a policy sought by a corporation donating to a group closely tied to the lawmaker, it sounds bad; but when it’s John McCain<\/a>, it sounds worse.<\/p>\n

Cablevision Systems Corp. donated heavily to a group called the Reform Institute, which has deep ties to McCain and, somewhat ironically, promotes reform of the campaign-finance system and lessening the significance of money in the political process. Cablevision ultimately contributed $200,000 to the group. Simultaneously, McCain helped the company with the Federal Communication Commission and invited its CEO testify before his Senate committee.<\/p>\n

McCain’s assistance in 2003 and 2004 was sandwiched around two donations of $100,000 each from Cablevision to The Reform Institute, a tax-exempt group that touts McCain’s views and has showcased him at events since his unsuccessful 2000 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

The group also pays McCain’s chief political adviser, Rick Davis, $110,000 a year. Cablevision’s donations accounted for 15 percent of the institute’s fund-raising in 2003, tax records show.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At a minimum, there’s an appearance of a conflict of interest, which as a champion of reform, McCain should know to avoid.<\/p>\n

At this point, McCain’s defense is rather unpersuasive.<\/p>\n

McCain said he saw nothing wrong with the group’s raising money from a company whose issue he championed because the donations didn’t go to his re-election campaign. He said and documents provided by his office show he expressed interest in a la carte pricing since at least 1998, well before Cablevision advocated it.<\/p>\n

“If it was a PAC (political action committee) or if it was somehow connected to any campaign of mine, I would say to you, that’s a legitimate appearance of conflict of interest. But it’s not,” McCain told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

“There’s not a conflict of interest when you’re involved in an organization that is nonpartisan, nonprofit, nonpolitical.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That doesn’t quite work. McCain is clearly tied to the Reform Institute and has made little effort to hide his relationship. The group uses the senator’s name in press releases and fund-raising letters, and includes him at press conferences. Indeed, McCain’s top advisers literally help run the group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In other words, we have a wealthy corporation donating heavily to a group with close ties to a senator, who then turns around and starts helping that corporation. McCain can’t wash his hands of it so easily.<\/p>\n

The issue largely focuses on efforts of a la carte pricing with cable companies. To be fair, McCain notes that he was involved with the issue before Cablevision started making donations. That’s true, but it’s also worth noting that McCain did not take a formal position with regulators until after the company’s first donation.<\/p>\n

This could be something of a headache for McCain, or it could go nowhere fast. It’s just something to keep an eye on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It may not be entirely fair, but when one holds himself or oneself out as Mr. Clean, it’s inevitable that he or she will be held to a higher standard. That’s why when we hear about a senator promoting a policy sought by a corporation donating to a group closely tied to the lawmaker, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}