Black Claims McCain’s Campaign Is Above Lobbyist Influence: ‘I Don’t Know What The Criticism Is’
Black Claims McCain’s Campaign Is Above Lobbyist Influence: ‘I Don’t Know What The Criticism Is’
Last week, BKSH & Associates chairman Charlie Black announced that he was quitting his lobbying firm to join Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign full-time, effective March 31. Prior to this arrangement, however, Black had already been serving as a senior adviser to the campaign.
Yesterday on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, Black claimed that he was the only “senior staff” member on the McCain campaign who was a lobbyist:
DOBBS: Well, you know, lobbyists, no one rails against them more than I do as you know Charlie. The criticism of having so many lobbyists in the McCain campaign, what is the response?
BLACK: “Where are they?” is the response. If you look at the senior staff, the top 12, 15, 20 people of the McCain campaign, there’s no one other than me who was a lobbyist — a currently active lobbyist. Now I am not. I don’t know what the criticism is.
Watch it:
At the last moment, Black catches himself and notes that none of McCain’s senior staff members are “currently active” lobbyists. But whether or not they are currently active is besides the point for a campaign that has consistently blasted the influence of lobbyists in government. Additionally, many of these aides do retain their lobbying connections.
Black is trying to claim that the McCain campaign is not influenced by lobbyists. But in January, ABC News reported that McCain had “59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates,” according to research by Public Citizen.
McCain’s advisers have a history of using their connections to the senator to win lucrative contracts, raising questions about the independence of their work now. McCain, similarly, has pushed for positions that have benefited his advisers’ past and current clients. Some examples of the lobbyist ties of McCain’s senior staff:
– Rick Davis, Campaign Manager: Between 2002 and 2005, Verizon paid Davis $640,000 to lobby on its behalf. Davis signed Verizon up as a client in 2001, just a year after he managed McCain’s first presidential campaign. McCain served as Senate Commerce Committee chairman for most of that time. Verizon and Davis terminated their contract after 2005, when McCain gave up the chairmanship. [Senate Lobbying Database; USA Today, 3/23/08]
– Christian Ferry, Deputy Campaign Manager: Ferry “partnered with Davis in representing SBC and Verizon from 2003 to 2005.” [USA Today, 3/23/08]
– David Crane, Senior Policy Adviser: Crane is a lobbyist and president of Quadripoint Strategies and “served as a senior policy advisor” to McCain on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. “He previously worked as a lobbyist and senior vice president for Global USA and The Washington Group. His clients have included Bank of America, the Financial Services Roundtable, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.” [Media Matters, 2/26/08]
– John Green, Congressional Liaison: Green is co-founder and managing director of Ogilvy Government Relations, one of Washington’s most powerful lobbying firms. Recently, McCain pushed the Pentagon to open the bidding process for new Air Force tankers to EADS — a European company — “a move loudly objected to…by numerous members of Congress.” Green received $1,080,000 to lobby for EADS, although he is now on a “leave of absence” from Ogilvy. [AP, 3/11/08]
– Thomas Loeffler, Campaign Co-Chairman: Loeffler is founder, chairman, and senior partner at the Loeffler Group. While serving as McCain’s national finance chairman, Loeffler also lobbied for EADS in the Air Force deal. [AP, 3/11/08]
– Susan Nelson, Campaign Finance Director: “Before joining the campaign last year, Nelson represented AT&T and Qualcomm for the Loeffler Group in 2006 and 2007. She also represented Verizon in 2004 while working at Ogilvy Government Relations.” [USA Today, 3/23/08]
– Wayne Berman, National Finance Committee Co-Chairman: Berman is the managing director of Ogilvy Government Relations and “has represented AT&T since last year, and Verizon and Verizon Wireless since 2004. Co-workers and their spouses at Ogilvy, formerly known as the Federalist Group, gave McCain’s campaigns $38,550 in the past decade.” [USA Today, 3/23/08]
– Doug Davenport, Regional Chairman: Just yesterday, GOP sources reported that the McCain will be hiring Davenport as one its 10 regional campaign managers. Davenport is founder of the DCI Group and heads its lobbying practice. In the past, DCI “helped set up Progress for America, the well-funded 527 that assisted President Bush in the 2004 elections.” [Ambinder, 4/2/08]
Media Matters has more here and here outlining McCain’s connections to lobbyists.
Transcript:
DOBBS: Why did you just simply on the basis of conflict of interest, you decided it would be better to be full time?
BLACK: Well, no actually Senator McCain asked me to do a fairly significant job for the campaign that’s going to be a six or seven-day-a week job. I’m totally devoted to his election so in order to do that, I needed to leave my other business. But along the way, some people in the other party have raised questions about having lobbyists play big roles in campaigns.
So I’ve resigned. I’m now a retired lobbyist. Nobody can allege a conflict.
DOBBS: Well, you know, lobbyists, no one rails against them more than I do as you know Charlie. The criticism of having so many lobbyists in the McCain campaign, what is the response?
BLACK: “Where are they?” is the response. If you look at the senior staff, the top 12, 15, 20 people of the McCain campaign, there’s no one other than me that was a lobbyist, a currently active lobbyist. Now I am not. I don’t know what the criticism is.
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na, we all know how the story ends….
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:31 pmMcCain, is another Dead Beats like George. Bush could screew up a Brick Shit House with a rubber hammer.Both Bush and McCain would have a hard time running a newspaper stand on a busy street corner in New York City, they would screew it up as they have our country. Just plain ass Dead Beats.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:36 pmAnd exactly why no one in the media exploring exposing Black’s connection to Reverend Moon and now Black help set up Moon’s coronation in, of all the places, the U.S. Congress itself when he was declared the King Of America with other Republican congressmen and operatives attending and supporting this ? After all the media created and driven bullshit about Obama’s pastor Wright .. and nothing, zero, on this ?
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:37 pmDobbs. What a freak of nature.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:37 pmOne would think with all the money Black has he’d spend a few bucks, and get his teeth cleaned!
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:39 pmBlack doesn’t know what the criticism is. I mean, having your campaign run by a bunch of lobbyists isn’t like having your foreign policy decided by a bunch of oil men…
Oh wait…
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:39 pmImagine ever really quitting being a lobbyist? That only happens with death and prison. It doesn’t happen when you go to work for a candidate that is owned outright by numerous interests. Who does this simpleton believe he is fooling with such nonsense?
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:43 pmA good analogy is to Mel Brooks’ “the Producers” Sell 40,000% of the stock and tell every lobbyist that you will do anything they want. Even the opposing ones! If they are stupid enough to donate to his legal defense fund, so be it.
Current lobbyist. Oh. Abramhoff isn’t a lobbyist any more. He’s as clean as the driven Snow (Tony that is). Not sure how this works in but it’s the first thing that popped up in my head.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:47 pmHere is the life cycle of this kind of crap:
Step 1. Allegation is made by an astute observer, often a college student, not often enough the media, or by Keith Olbermann
Step 2. Official representative appears and denies the allegation.
Step 3. Additional evidence, video, etc., is located that contradicts the official representative and supports the initial allegation, and perhaps even illustrates that it is bigger/more heinous/more astonishing than the initial reports indicated.
Step 4. Official representative again denies allegation, this time by defending it (or deflecting it) by claiming that everyone else does it, or that it never actually happened, or it was taken out of context, or someone misspoke, or [you fill in the excuse - there are hundreds].
Step 5. The official will repeat Step 4 ad nauseam hoping to to stall on this allegation long enough until something bigger comes along and knocks this issue out of the limelight.
Step 6. Another issue comes along that knocks the this issue out of the limelight. The new issue is usually more unbelievable or offensive than this issue.
Step 7. Return to Step 1 and repeat process with the new issue.
Welcome to USA politics circa 2008, and this Administration in particular.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:47 pmGOP=Culture of Lies.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:52 pmJust wait until that bloated sack of crap Dobbs finds out about the undocumented Mexicans McCain is hiding on the “express!” I want this to happen just to see this racist scum explode… oh what a show it will be.
I bet his head is full of bacon-corn chowder or something as equally disgusting
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:53 pmI noticed that the second lobbyist listed is “Christian Ferry”. Is he related to Larry Craig? Folks, you just can’t make this stuff up.
ROFLMAO
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:00 pmFox to hens, What were we talking about?
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:05 pm“there’s no one other than me who was a lobbyist”
Oh, the lies, the lies they tell, the lies they spew, the lies that are believed by most of the public is sickening.
I would tell them to “Wake Up People” but then they would hear it, now would they.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:06 pm(they would NEVER hear it,)
my bad
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:07 pmNever trust anyone that combs their hair like that.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:15 pmNotice how Black had to make the distinction ” a currently active lobbyist”. ” I quit so I don’t see what the problem is.”
These guys must take classes to talk out of both sides of their mouths. Or is it a requirement to be a Republican.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:16 pmDo the lobbyists lobby for a ’straight talk bus ride’ or do they have to buy a ‘5 million dollar ticket’ to get on board?
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:17 pmIn other words, Black says “So”. Cheneytized answering.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:19 pmMcCain wouldn’t be hiring all of these lobbyists if he thought this was going to hurt him.
Is it two-faced? Hell, yes. Will it really haunt him in the election? I’m not so sure.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:22 pmBlack is a certified sociopathic liar.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:26 pmBlack is a floater who has been swimming in the lobbyist sewer for so long that he no longer sees all the other turds.
This is just one of many instances of hypocrisy that is going to sink McNumbNuts come October.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:32 pmMcCain made sure that EADS got the 35 Billion Dollar Air Force Tanker Contract. And it just so happens that the two lobbyists for that project, just happen to join your campaign.
It must have been out of the goodness of their hearts… I wonder how much money is getting funneled into his campaign for such a windfall.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:38 pmIt seems there’s alot of connections to the telecom companys…HMMM! Hey I made a pun! :)
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:51 pmThe lobbyist working for McCain’s campaign assures us that lobbyists have no influence on the campaign… I have got to break something to you friendo…
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:44 pmAnd Dobbs didn’t follow up, with the facts that contradict Black’s claim? I’m surprised (not).
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:56 pm