Subject: RE: our frame on McCain's woes is starting
From: "Begala, Paul" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked], "Susan McCue" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], "John Podesta" <[email-masked]>, "Stan Greenberg" <[email-masked]>, "Anna Greenberg" <[email-masked]>, "Zach Schwartz" <[email-masked]>, "Tara McGuinness" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:10:33 -0500

Clip and save that headline.  It's a keeper.  As well as the comments
from today's presser, wherein our hero repeatedly said he has "lots of
friends who represent interests..."

________________________________

From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Tom
Matzzie
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 11:53 PM
To: Susan McCue; Begala, Paul; [email-masked]; John Podesta;
Stan Greenberg; Anna Greenberg; Zach Schwartz; Tara McGuinness
Subject: our frame on McCain's woes is starting

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/21/AR200802
2101131_pf.html 

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'); } //--> 
Anti-Lobbyist Candidate Is Advised by Lobbyists

By Michael D. Shear and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 22, 2008; A01

For years, Sen. John McCain
<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/m000303/>
(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
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Arizona?tid=informline>
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
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Rick+Davis?tid=informli
ne> , co-founded a lobbying firm whose clients have included Verizon
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Verizon+Communications+
Inc.?tid=informline>  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
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Alcoa+Inc.?tid=informli
ne> , JP Morgan and U.S. Airways
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/US+Airways+Group+Inc.?t
id=informline> .

Senior advisers Steve Schmidt and Mark McKinnon
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Mark+McKinnon?tid=infor
mline>  work for firms that have lobbied for Land O Lakes, the UST
Public Affairs, Dell
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Dell+Inc.?tid=informlin
e>  and Fannie Mae
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Fannie+Mae?tid=informli
ne> .

McCain's relationship with lobbyists became an issue this week after it
was reported that his aides asked Vicki Iseman
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Vicki+Iseman?tid=inform
line> , a telecom lobbyist, to distance herself from his 2000
presidential campaign because it would threaten McCain's reputation for
independence. An angry and defiant McCain denounced the stories
yesterday, declaring: "At no time have I ever done anything that would
betray the public trust."

Even before McCain finished his news conference, uber-lobbyist Black
made the rounds of television networks to defend McCain against charges
that he has been tainted by his relationship with a lobbyist. Black's
current clients include General Motors
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/General+Motors+Corporat
ion?tid=informline> , United Technologies
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/United+Technologies+Cor
poration?tid=informline> , J.P. Morgan and AT&T.

Black said he is still being paid by his firm and does work for clients
in his "spare time," recusing himself from lobbying McCain: "I not only
do not lobby him [McCain], but if an issue comes up that I have a client
on, I will tell him that and stay out of the discussion."

A common career path for political operatives is a lucrative job at a
Washington lobbying firm that allows them to continue campaign work, and
McCain is hardly the first candidate to draw on that talent pool. The
campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/c001041/>  (D-N.Y.)
has been aided by lobbyists Harold Ickes
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Harold+Ickes?tid=inform
line>  and Mark Penn
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Mark+Penn?tid=informlin
e> , who heads Burson Marsteller
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Burson-Marsteller+Ltd.?
tid=informline>  Worldwide. Sen. Barack Obama
<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/o000167/>  (D-Ill.)
has been advised by former senator Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), who does
not register to lobby but advises clients about Washington.

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. "He has a closer
relationship with lobbyists than he lets on," said Melanie Sloan
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Melanie+Sloan?tid=infor
mline>  of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Citizens+for+Responsibi
lity+and+Ethics+in+Washington?tid=informline> . "The problem for McCain
being so closely associated with lobbyists is that he's the candidate
most closely associated with attacking lobbyists."

Davis did not respond to requests for an interview. Black, acting as a
campaign spokesman, said that Davis is being paid neither by his firm
nor by the McCain campaign, and has not been a registered lobbyist for
three years.

Schmidt and McKinnon said they remain with their firms, but are not
lobbyists and have recused themselves from the issues of their clients
in the McCain campaign. "I've never discussed a client issue with the
candidate or his staff," McKinnon wrote in an e-mail.

Campaign finance experts said employees of a company are allowed to
volunteer for a campaign as long as they do so on their own time, or
continue to perform the functions for which their employers are paying
them.

McCain's reliance on lobbyists for key jobs -- both in the Senate and in
his presidential campaign -- extends beyond his inner circle.

McCain recently hired Mark Buse to be his Senate chief of staff. Buse
led the Commerce Committee staff in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and
was until last fall a lobbyist for ML Strategies, representing EBay,
Goldman Sachs Group
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Goldman+Sachs+Group+Inc
.?tid=informline> , Cablevision
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Cablevision+Systems+Cor
poration?tid=informline> , Tenneco and Novartis Pharmaceuticals
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Novartis+AG?tid=informl
ine> .

McCain's top fundraising official is former congressman Tom Loeffler
(R-Tex.), who heads a lobbying law firm called the Loeffler Group. He
has counseled the Saudis as well as Southwest Airlines
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Southwest+Airlines+Inc.
?tid=informline> , AT&T, Toyota
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Toyota+Motor+Corporatio
n?tid=informline>  and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of
America.

Public Citizen
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Public+Citizen+Foundati
on?tid=informline> , a group that monitors campaign fundraising, has
found that McCain had more bundlers -- people who gather checks from
networks of friends and associates -- from the lobbying community than
any other presidential candidate from either party.

By the group's current count, McCain had at least 59 federal lobbyists
raising money for his campaign, compared with 33 working for Republican
Rudolph W. Giuliani
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Rudolph+Giuliani?tid=in
formline>  and 19 working for Democrat Clinton.

"The potential harm is that should Senator McCain become elected, those
people will have a very close relationship with the McCain White House
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+White+House?tid=inf
ormline> ," Sloan said. "[That] would be very helpful for their clients,
and that would give them a leg up on everybody else."

Of all the lobbyists involved in the McCain campaign, the most prominent
is Black, who has made a lucrative career of shuttling back and forth
between presidential politics and big-time Washington lobbying. He has
worked for the campaigns of former congressman Jack Kemp
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Jack+Kemp?tid=informlin
e>  (N.Y.), former president George H.W. Bush
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/George+H.W.+Bush?tid=in
formline>  and former senators Phil Gramm
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Phil+Gramm?tid=informli
ne>  (Tex.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Texas?tid=informline> )
and Robert J. Dole
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Robert+J.+Dole?tid=info
rmline>  (Kan.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Kansas?tid=informline>
), all Republicans.

"I've spent a fair amount of my life as a lobbyist, but I've spent a
majority of my adult life running Republican political campaigns,"
Black, 60, said.

His relationship with McCain, for whom he is a senior adviser, goes back
30 years, from the time McCain first came to Washington. They got to
know each other well during Gramm's 1996 presidential run; Gramm, now an
investment banker, now is a major supporter and adviser to McCain.

But even as Black provide a private voice and a public face for McCain,
he also leads his lobbying firm, which offers corporate interests and
foreign governments the promise of access to the most powerful
lawmakers. Some of those companies have interests before the Senate and,
in particular, McCain's Commerce Committee.

Black said he does a lot of his work by telephone from McCain's Straight
Talk Express bus.

He said, however, the combination now requires that he work on weekends,
which means 80- or even 90-hour weeks. If McCain were to ask him to step
up his commitment to the campaign during the general election, Black
said he would take a leave or a reduced salary from BKSH and devote
himself to electing McCain president.

McCain has long sought to defend his associations with lobbyists,
stressing that friendships with them do not influence his independent
judgment when it comes to legislative action. In comments to reporters
yesterday, he acknowledged those friendships.

"I have many friends who represent various interests, ranging from the
firemen to the police to senior citizens to various interests,
particularly before my committee," McCain said. "The question is . . .
do they have excess or unwarranted influence? And certainly no one ever
has in my conduct of my public life and conduct of my legislative
agenda."

Staff writer Glenn Kessler, research editor Alice Crites and
washingtonpost.com <http://washingtonpost.com/>  staff writer Chris
Cillizza contributed to this report.

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