McCain Challenging Money Interests

Senator McCain is an exceptional human being. I have not been so enthused
about a Republican since the 50s when I was assigned to work in the
Eisenhower White House. Senator McCain is very much like how I remember
Ike. He was a great general and a terrific president and I am certain
McCain will be also.

Yes, the polls are close and like they did to Hillary, the pundits have
already counted John McCain out. That would be a mistake. He is known to
have come back from toughter situations than this.

It was Hitler's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels contention that if you
repeated a lie enough times people would believe it. This seems to be a
favorite tactic in the Obama camp. Over and over again he accused McCain
of being in the pocket of big business, when all along, we were to
discover, it was Obama who was taking more corporate money for his
campaign. What gives? How can he get away with telling lies and not being
scolded by the press but McCain is challenged for everything he says?
Obama has a closer relationship with lobbyists than McCain ever had.  And
it is Obama who refuses to disclose where half of all his millions of
dollars are coming from. Money is bundled and that way we can't know what
Islamist groups are funding this candidate.

David Brooks, in The Real McCain written for the New York Times on Feb 26,
2008 writes:

(Quotes)

Well, anything is worth trying, I suppose, but there is the little problem of
his record. McCain has fought one battle after another against lobbyists and
special interests. And while I dont have space to describe all his tussles, or
even the lesser ones like his fight with the agricultural lobby against sugar
subsidies, I thought that, amidst all these charges, it might be worth noting
some of the McCain highlights from the past dozen years.

In 1996, McCain was one of five senators, and the only Republican, to vote
against the Telecommunications Act. He did it because he believed the act gave
away too much to the telecommunications companies, and protected them from true
competition. He noted that AT&T alone gave $780,000 to Republicans and $456,000
to Democrats in the year leading up to the vote.

In 1998, McCain championed anti-smoking legislation that faced furious
opposition from the tobacco lobby. McCain guided the legislation through the
Senate Commerce Committee on a 19-1 vote, but then the tobacco companies struck
back. They hired 200 lobbyists and spent $40 million in advertising (three
times as much as the Harry and Louise health care reform ads). Many of the ads
attacked McCain by name, accusing him of becoming a big government liberal.
After weeks of bitter debate, the bill died on the Senate floor.

In 2000, McCain ran for president and reiterated his longstanding opposition to
ethanol subsidies. Though it crippled his chances in Iowa, he argued that
ethanol was a wasteful giveaway. A recent study in the journal Science has
shown that when you take all impacts into consideration, ethanol consumption
increases greenhouse gas emissions compared with regular gasoline. Unlike, say,
Barack Obama, McCain still opposes ethanol subsidies.

In 2002, McCain capped his long push for campaign finance reform by passing the
McCain-Feingold Act. People can argue about the effectiveness of the act, but
one thing is beyond dispute. It was a direct assault on lobbyist power, and
earned McCain undying enmity among many important parts of the Republican
coalition, who felt their soft money influence was being diminished.

In 2003, the Senate nearly passed the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act.
The act was opposed by the usual mix of energy, auto and mining companies. But
moderate environmental groups were thrilled that McCain-Lieberman was able to
attract more than 40 votes in the Senate.

In 2004, McCain launched a frontal assault on the leasing contract the Pentagon
had signed with Boeing for aerial refueling tankers. McCains investigation
exposed billions of dollars of waste and layers of contracting irregularity.

In 2005, McCain led the Congressional investigation into the behavior of the
lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The investigation was exceedingly unpleasant for
Republicans, because it exposed shocking misbehavior by important conservative
activists.

Over the past few years, McCain has stepped up his longstanding assault on
earmarks. Every year, McCain goes to the Senate floor to ridicule the latest
batch of earmarks, and every year his colleagues and the lobbyists fume. For
years, McCain has proposed legislative remedies  greater transparency, a
60-vote supermajority requirement  that were brutally unpopular with many
colleagues until, suddenly, now.

Over the course of his career, McCain has tried to do the impossible. He has
challenged the winds of the money gale. He has sometimes failed and fallen
short. And there have always been critics who cherry-pick his compromises,
ignore his larger efforts and accuse him of being a hypocrite.

This is, of course, the gospel of the mediocre man: to ridicule somebody who
tries something difficult on the grounds that the effort was not a total
success. But any decent person who looks at the McCain record sees that while
he has certainly faltered at times, he has also battled concentrated power more
doggedly than any other legislator. If this is the record of a candidate with
lobbyists on his campaign bus, then every candidate should have lobbyists on
the bus.

And heres the larger point: Were going to have two extraordinary nominees for
president this year. This could be one of the great general election campaigns
in American history. The only thing that could ruin it is if the candidates
become demagogues and hurl accusations at each other that are an insult to
reality and common sense.

Maybe Obama can start this campaign over.

[David Brooks, The Real MCcain, NYT Feb26, 2008]

Source:
http://tinyurl.com/4wf9nh

(End Quotes)

Hank Roth
In Your Face
http://inyourface.info/