McCain's alleged affair with a lobbyist isn't a big deal. What matter more are his ties to special interests, like her clients in the cruise ship industry.
Joe Conasonsalon.com
Febuary 22, 2008
While reporters, critics and campaign flacks debate whether the New York Times probe of John McCain's relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman was undercooked or overdone, the sexual implications should not distract from the story's real significance. Iseman is blond, buxom and three decades younger than the Arizona senator, but nobody except Cindy McCain should resent their alleged affair. Her husband has never pretended to be a sexual puritan, like so many of the hypocrites in his party.
But McCain has long pretended (and still pretends) to be purer than ordinary politicians compromised by special interests, soft money and lobbyist perks, which in Washington can include anything from pizza and beer to private air travel, free limousine service, luxury gifts and, of course, extramarital sex -- as scandal after scandal has proved in salacious detail.
We may never know exactly what kind of relationship McCain pursued with Iseman. But if she is a symbol of broader patterns in his political career, as the Times story suggests, then it becomes easier to understand why many of his colleagues regard this great reformer as a preening phony. Although he has often displayed independence from the pressures of the capital, he has sometimes succumbed to those influences; and while he may seem to shun lobbyists, he actually surrounds himself with them.
Indeed, the McCain spokesmen who have mounted his aggressive counterthrust against the New York Times are lobbyists themselves, or at least that's what they do when they aren't speaking up for the integrity and incorruptibility of their candidate.
Among the loudest McCain mouthpieces is Charlie Black, a seasoned Republican operative whose client roster dates back to such paragons as the late Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos and several African dictators, and more recently has featured Erik Prince, the mercenary entrepreneur who founded Blackwater. (Black's wife is a lobbyist too, and his firm, known as BKSH, is owned by Burson-Marsteller, the enormous P.R. conglomerate chaired by Hillary Clinton's top campaign advisor, Mark Penn.) McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, is also a lobbyist, whose client interests in the broadcasting and cable industry overlapped with those represented by Iseman and her firm, Alcalde & Fay. During the off years between presidential elections, Davis collected donations from companies regulated by the Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by his boss McCain, for the amusingly named "Reform Institute," which also paid handsome sinecures to Davis and various other McCain campaign consultants. McCain's chief fundraiser is Tom Loeffler, a prominent lobbyist and former Texas congressman whose clients range from PhRMA to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. ... ( more )
Copyright ©2008 Salon Media Group, Inc.
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