{"id":7225,"date":"2006-04-24T13:55:53","date_gmt":"2006-04-24T17:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7225"},"modified":"2006-04-24T13:55:53","modified_gmt":"2006-04-24T17:55:53","slug":"mccain-befriends-old-enemies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/mccain-befriends-old-enemies\/","title":{"rendered":"McCain ‘befriends old enemies’"},"content":{"rendered":"

[tag]John McCain[\/tag] used to think that [tag]Grover Norquist[\/tag] was a crook and a corrupt shill for dictators. Then McCain got serious about running for president and he reconciled with Norquist<\/a>. McCain used to think [tag]Jerry Falwell[\/tag] was an agent of intolerance, but now candidate McCain has embraced Falwell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s an interesting pattern — and the examples keep piling up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Once they were “coyotes.” Now, they’re pals.<\/p>\n

Some of the very same men who helped derail Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2000 using techniques the Arizona Republican alleged were illegal — and whom McCain likened to the prairie carnivores — are now leading financial supporters of his “Straight Talk America” political action committee and possible backers of his anticipated 2008 presidential run.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

ABC News went digging and found campaign contribution reports and an invitation to a McCain fundraiser establishing a close connection between McCain and the [tag]Wyly[\/tag] brothers — Texas businessmen Sam and Charles Wyly.<\/p>\n

It’s an unlikely friendship. In 2000, the Wyly brothers, major Bush backers, created a front group called “[tag]Republicans for Clear Air[\/tag],” which spent $2.5 million on anti-McCain ads in California, New York, and Ohio. McCain not only filed a complaint against the Wylys for allegedly violating campaign finance law, he also lashed out at them publicly.<\/p>\n

[McCain] himself referred to the brothers as “[tag]Wyly coyotes[\/tag]” and asked a campaign audience in Boston, “Are we going to allow two cronies of George W. Bush to hijack this election? Tell them to keep their dirty money in the state of Texas, my friends. Don’t spread it all over New England and America.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That was then. Now McCain has successfully reached out to these same “Wyly coyotes,” who in turn are contributing generously to McCain’s political action committee and co-chairing a McCain fundraiser in May.<\/p>\n

I’m trying to imagine how much more McCain could sell out, but I’m at a bit of a loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[tag]John McCain[\/tag] used to think that [tag]Grover Norquist[\/tag] was a crook and a corrupt shill for dictators. Then McCain got serious about running for president and he reconciled with Norquist. McCain used to think [tag]Jerry Falwell[\/tag] was an agent of intolerance, but now candidate McCain has embraced Falwell. It’s an interesting pattern — and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7225","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=7225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}