Elections Today
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Recent Projections
| State | Candidate | Delegates |
|---|---|---|
 Donald Trump | ||
Pennsylvania |  Joe Biden |
Lobbyist Ties Threaten McCain Image
Insider influence casts doubt on McCain's promises to clean up Washington.
May 21, 2008 — -- John McCain has pitched himself to the American people as a reformer and an agent of change, someone equipped through years in the Senate and an air of integrity to clean up Washington politics.
But now, as the presumptive Republican nominee begins to formally shift his attention to the general election, the spotlight is on some of the people who helped get him there. Five campaign officials have had to step away from McCain's team because of lobbying entanglements that could be embarrassing to the Arizona senator.
A controversy over Washington insider influence, which McCain has made a reputation fighting against, could damage the image his campaign hopes to project of McCain as the best able to take on the "politics-as-usual" culture that poll after poll indicates voters want to see changed. On the stump, he regularly decries the influence of lobbying in politics, despite many of his top advisors' connections, or former connections, to lobbying interests.
The biggest departure came when former Congressman Tom Loeffler, the head of McCain's finance committee, resigned from the campaign over the weekend to avoid a potential conflict of interest in his representation of the government of Saudi Arabia.
Loeffler's departure followed four others in the past two weeks and seemed to be the immediate result of a new lobbying disclosure policy implemented by the campaign over the weekend.
In a memo to the staff, campaign manger Rick Davis – himself the subject of criticism for his former work with Ukraine – laid down formally that "no person working for the Campaign may be a registered lobbyist or foreign agent," and that volunteers for the campaign must disclose their status as registered lobbyists or foreign agents. "Such persons are prohibited from involvement in any Campaign policy-making on the subjects on which they are registered.… [S]uch persons are also prohibited from lobbying Senator McCain or his Senate personal [sic] office or committee staffs during the period they are volunteering for the campaign."
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