McCain, the maverick, and all McCain's lobbyists

McCain, the maverick, and all McCain's lobbyists

McCain is back again, seeking the 2008 nomination -- with some

lobbyists in tow again.

by Mark Silva

Sen. John McCain, the self-styled maverick from Arizona, has run with

an establishment crowd in Washington for some time now.

In 2000, when McCain set out to seek the Republican Party's

presidential nomination, his campaign charter jet landed in New

Hampshire early on with some lobbyists aboard.

David Broder, dean of the politicial writers, was aboard that plane.

And he duly noted the presence of Ken Duberstein, the lobbyist and

former chief of staff for Ronald Reagan, aboard the plane of the

senator running as the anti-establishment candidate.

Yours truly was on that plane, too, and duly noted the presence of Tom

Panza, a Florida-based lobbyist for GTech, the lottery-management

company that has mopped up contract after contract in the states

running lotteries and provided lucrative employment for a lot of

former state workers in the process.

After McCain trounced George W. Bush in the New Hampshire primary,

Bush retreated to Texas to refine his campaign message and reemerged

as a "reformer with results'' -- attacking McCain as "the Chairman''

-- then chair of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee.

Bush won, McCain lost, and now McCain is back again, seeking the 2008

nomination -- with some lobbyists in tow again.

How many? More than any other candidate -- Republican or Democrat --

according to the work of Tom Edsall, a seasoned political reporter who

has written extensively about the role of money in politics and long

worked alongside Broder at the Washington Post. He serves now as

political editor of The Huffington Post, in addition to his teaching

at the Columbia University Gradulate School of Journalism.

This is what Edsall reports today about McCain:

McCain Has More Lobbyists

On Staff Than Any Other 08 Candidate

Thomas B. Edsall

The Huffington Post

June 23, 2007

John McCain, who made his name attacking special interests, has more

lobbyists working on his staff or as advisers than any of his

competitors, Republican or Democrat.

A Huffington Post examination of the campaigns of the top three

presidential candidates in each party shows that lobbyists are playing

key roles in both Democratic and Republican bids --although they are

far more prevalent on the GOP side. But, all the campaigns pale in

comparison to McCain's, whose rhetoric stands in sharp contrast to his

conduct.

"Too often the special interest lobbyists with the fattest wallets and

best access carry the day when issues of public policy are being

decided," McCain asserts on his web site, declaring that he "has

fought the 'revolving door' by which lawmakers and other influential

officials leave their posts and become lobbyists for the special

interests they have aided."

In actual practice, at least two of McCain's top advisers fit

precisely the class of former elected officials he criticizes so

sharply. On March 7, 2007, McCain named ex-Texas Representative Tom

Loeffler, who has one of the most lucrative and influential practices

in the nation's capital, as his campaign co-chair. In the same month,

McCain named former Washington Sen. Slade Gorton, now a heavyweight

lobbyist, as his honorary chairman for Washington state.

Loeffler's client list includes PhRMA, the drug industry association;

Southwest Airlines; Toyota; and Martin Marietta. Gorton represents,

among others, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., Weyerhaeuser and

Fidelity National Financial.

In addition, David Crane, now the campaign's senior policy advisor,

was a senior executive at The Washington Group, a firm with 2006

billings of $10.4 million and 52 clients, including Delta Airlines,

the Association of American Railroads, and the governments of Panama

and Bangladesh. And Charlie Black, who is now a campaign spokesman

appearing on McCain's behalf on radio, television, and as a "spin-

doctor" after debates, is chairman of BKSH & Associates, with lobbying

billings of $7.6 million in 2006, representing J.P. Morgan, Occidental

and General Motors.

All told, there are 11 current or former lobbyists working for or

advising McCain, at least double the number in any other campaign.

Among the current and former lobbyists working for McCain are:

Campaign CEO Rick Davis, a partner at Davis Manafort, where his

clients have included SBC Communications and Verizon; and former Davis

Manafort associate, National eCampaign Director Christian Ferry. At

the end of 2006, Mike Dennehy, who founded The Dennehy Group, a New

Hampshire lobbying firm, was appointed McCain's national political

director. He gave up that post in May to become a senior campaign

advisor

McCain's deputy communications director Danny Diaz did not reply to

questions about the campaign's policies governing the activities of

lobbyists.

McCain is not the only Republican to depend substantially on the help

of lobbyists. In January, 2007, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt

Romney picked Vin Weber, a member of Congress from Minnesota until

1992, to be his policy chairman. "As I continue building a national

organization, he [Weber] will be an important voice in advancing my

agenda to move the country forward," Romney said.

Considered one of Washington's "super lobbyists," Weber counts among

his clients such drug industry powerhouses as PhRMA and Pfizer;

accounting firms Ernst & Young, KPMG and Deloitte Touche, along with

such companies as Microsoft and Ebay.

Senior Romney adviser Ron Kaufman is a managing partner at the

lobbying firm Dutko Worldwide. Romney also hired lobbyist Tony

Feather, whose close ties to the Bush administration have given his

clients exceptional access to power, as a top political consultant.

Rudy Giuliani is less reliant on big league lobbyists. The chair of

his Justice Advisory Committee, Theodore Olson, was a registered

lobbyist last year for Hoffmann-LaRouche. Senior communications

advisor Michael McKeon is a partner at Mercury Public Affairs a

federal and state lobbying firm which "specializes in high-value

public affairs at the intersection of business, government, politics,

and media." But Giuliani himself is a partner in the firm Bracewell &

Giuliani, and in the most recent filing period, the second half of

2006, the firm represented 90 clients before the federal government.

Bracewell & Giuliani, which is headquartered in Texas, specializes in

advancing the interests of energy companies, along with such

businesses as CSX Transportation and the Power Tool Institute.

Bracewell & Giuliani's managing partner, Patrick Oxford, is the

chairman of the Giuliani campaign. Although the firm and many of its

lawyers are registered lobbyists, neither Giuliani nor

Oxford are personally registered.

On the other side of the aisle, Democratic campaigns have fewer ties

with lobbyists.

Of the leading Democratic candidates, Barack Obama is the least

entangled with K Street. His campaign has no lobbyists on the payroll

or serving as key advisers.

Obama is followed by John Edwards. Nick Baldick, a senior Edwards

adviser, is not a registered lobbyist, but he is the founder of

Hilltop Public Solutions. Hilltop "manages its national network of

state affiliates to build support for our clients' public policy

goals," boasting of victories for "the nation's largest financial

services firm, one of the nation's largest airlines, a major fast food

retailer, the world's largest healthcare provider, and numerous

additional industry leaders."

The Edwards campaign political director, David Medina, was a lobbyist

for the AFL-CIO from 1998 to 2003.

While falling short of McCain's ties to lobbying networks, Hillary

Clinton has made the most use, among Democrats, of the special

interest community.

Chief Clinton consigliere Harold Ickes represents the International

Dairy Food Association, Equitas, and TransCanada Pipelines. Finance

Director Jonathan Mantz came to the campaign from the PodestaMatoon

lobbying firm where his clients included Sigma Tau Pharmaceuticals,

General Dynamics, and United Airlines.

Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn, is president and CEO of Burson-

Marsteller, a public relations behemoth in the nation's capital.

Although Penn is not a registered lobbyist, his company is part of the

WWP Group conglomerate, a "family of companies" including such heavy

hitting lobbying firms as BKSH (Alcoa, Kaiser Aluminum, AT&T) and

Quinn & Gillespie (Bristol Myers Squibb, Qualcomm, and Microsoft).

Penn's controversial role has been written up by Ari Berman in The

Nation and in the Washington Post .

The growing role of lobbyists reflects a major change in their status

in campaigns. Once consigned to conducting their work in secret,

lobbyists now thrive on publicity, routinely appearing on television

as political commentators. Even running for office is no longer out of

the question: a stint as a lobbyist did not prevent Jim Talent from

winning a seat from Missouri in the U.S. Senate nor did one of the

most powerful lobbying careers in history hamper Haley Barbour's

successful 2003 bid to become governor of Mississippi.

Thomas B. Edsall is political editor of the Huffington Post. He is

also Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor at the

Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. From 1981 to 2006, he was a

political reporter at the Washington Post. He is the author of Chain

Reaction and Building Red America.

Posted by Mark Silva on June 23, 2007 6:18 PM | Permalink