McCain Lobbyists' Prize: $1 Billion, Study Says

McCain's Lobbyists Raked In $1 Billion From U.S. Clients, Study Says

The non-partisan group Campaign Money Watch has come up with another startling figure for those who follow the presidential money chase.
According to an analysis performed by the group, McCain's top fundraisers and aides have collected nearly $1 billion in fees from U.S. companies in the past decade -- specifically, $930,949,819. Using numbers provided by the Center for Responsive Politics, the group also found that officials of those very same companies have given nearly $12 million to McCain's presidential campaign, so far.
"The McCain campaign relies on big money lobbyists, and they'll rely on him," said David Donnelly, director of Campaign Money Watch. "In the 'you-scratch-my-back, I'll-scratch-yours' world of Washington, $931 million gets the special interests the best government money can buy. But just think of the payday these lobbyists might expect in a McCain Administration."
Donnelly's group previously launched a website called McCainsLobbyists.com, in which users can track the special interests represented by 40 of John McCain's top fundraisers and advisers.
John McCain

"The McCain campaign relies on big money lobbyists, and they'll rely on him," said David Donnelly, director of Campaign Money Watch. "In the 'you-scratch-my-back, I'll-scratch-yours' world of Washington, $931 million gets the special interests the best government money can buy. But just think of the payday these lobbyists might expect in a McCain Administration."
Donnelly's group previously launched a website called McCainsLobbyists.com, in which users can track the special interests represented by 40 of John McCain's top fundraisers and advisers

McCain Fundraiser Revives Abramoff Questions

The political world, and the Democratic Party in particular, is in a buzz over news that John McCain will attend a fundraiser hosted by Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition who fell from grace during the Jack Abramoff scandal.
'The Senator has come full circle,' goes the most common refrain -- a reference to both McCain's claim to scorn Washington's seedy lobbyists culture and the fact that his investigation into Abramoff effectively derailed Reed's political ambitions.
But there is, in fact, a far more curious and potentially damaging tie that connects the Arizona Republican and the religious right figure.
One of the projects on which Reed aided Abramoff was an effort financed by the Mississippi Choctaws to shut down other casino games in Alabama. The issue lingered well into 2002. And Abramoff's reach extended all the way into the state's gubernatorial election, when he wrote an aide about the legislative favors the Choctaws wanted in return for their support of then-candidate Bob Riley.
The latter revelation McCain covered up. That email, which the Senator had access to during his investigation, never made it into his Abramoff report. McCain claimed it was not his prerogative as chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee to "involve" himself "in the ethics process [of members of Congress]." And others felt the same way. The report passed the committee by a bipartisan 13-0 vote.
But the implications of McCain's decision were far reaching. Riley was able to beat the incumbent in that election -- a governor by the name of Don Siegleman, who was weighed down by seemingly politically-motivated leaks that federal prosecutors were looking into corruption charges -- by a mere 3,000 votes.