Thursday, February 21, 2008 - Posts
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As our resident McCain supporter, I'd be remiss not to weigh in on the strange story in the New York Times about the affair that the presumptive GOP nominee may or may not have had with lobbyist Vicki Iseman (who, as Hanna points out, looks eerily like McCain's wife).
It's entirely fair to report on a candidate's affairs, I agree-throw the information out there and let the electorate decide what to do with it. Same with a candidate's drug use or other nebulous behavior. (Though some harder evidence in this case would be nice.) Such nuggets generally don't affect my support for a politician, but they're not altogether irrelevant. And this doesn't scare me from McCain. No candidate is perfect, and I'm more focused on his record. I don't agree with him on everything, but I agree with him on the issues that are important to me.
Emily B., you brought up the sleaziness of the favors McCain did for Iseman's clients. I think if you look that closely into the career of anyone who's been in the House or Senate for 24 years-even a "reform advocate" like McCain-you could find letters to a government agency or flights on private jets. That's probably one reason we haven't elected a senator or former senator to the White House since Nixon (and he was 16 years removed from a three-year Senate stint by that point). That might be an argument against an "experience" candidate, but if you compare it with Kirk Watson's struggle to name a single accomplishment by Barack Obama, I'd guess it's a wash.
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John McCain may be denouncing the New York Times' story about his possibly inappropriate relationship with a young, fetching lobbyist, but doesn't it subliminally help him? One of his big problems is that he's so old—he keeps trotting out his 96-year-old mother to prove that as far as his genes are concerned, he's still a pup. But doesn't an affair with a sexy blonde do more to testify to his vigor?
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I entirely agree, Anne and Hanna, that the affair/maybe-not-affair aspect of the Times' McCain story makes the piece seem weirdly bonkers. Still, what about this toward the end (for those who wade past the rehash middle):
A champion of deregulation, Mr. McCain wrote letters in 1998 and 1999 to the Federal Communications Commission urging it to uphold marketing agreements allowing a television company to control two stations in the same city, a crucial issue for Glencairn Ltd., one of Ms. Iseman’s clients. He introduced a bill to create tax incentives for minority ownership of stations; Ms. Iseman represented several businesses seeking such a program. And he twice tried to advance legislation that would permit a company to control television stations in overlapping markets, an important issue for Paxson.
In late 1999, Ms. Iseman asked Mr. McCain’s staff to send a letter to the commission to help Paxson, now Ion Media Networks, on another matter. Mr. Paxson was impatient for F.C.C. approval of a television deal, and Ms. Iseman acknowledged in an e-mail message to The Times that she had sent to Mr. McCain’s staff information for drafting a letter urging a swift decision.
Mr. McCain complied. He sent two letters to the commission, drawing a rare rebuke for interference from its chairman.
It's not sexy, it's not sex, and it ain't the makings of good TV. But doesn't it reek of the other kind of political sleaze? It seemed to undermine this, "Mr. McCain’s friends dismiss questions about his ties to lobbyists, arguing that he has too much integrity to let such personal connections influence him." Assume for a second that McCain didn't have an affair with Vicki Iseman. Is there evidence that their relationship is still troubling, for the candidate who's supposed to be Mr. Lobbying Reform?
UPDATE: Here's the McCain campaign's response to those grafs.
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