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List of McCain Fundraisers Includes Prominent Lobbyists
By Michael Luo and Sarah Wheaton
The New York Times
Monday 21 April 2008
Senator John McCain has campaigned on curbing the influence of money in politics.
But an examination by The New York Times of a list of 106 elite fund-raisers
who have brought in more than $100,000 each for Mr. McCain found that about
a sixth of them were lobbyists. The list of "bundlers" was released
on Friday by the McCain campaign.
The sizable number of lobbyists, who are outnumbered on the list only by those
working in the financial services industry, offers another example of the balancing
act that Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is having to strike
as he campaigns for the presidency and seeks to maintain his reputation as a
reformer.
The McCain campaign's disclosure on Friday of its top bundlers of contributions
was part of its efforts to furnish a sense of financial transparency to the
public, in keeping with Mr. McCain's past focus on overhauling campaign
finance and his criticism of the influence of special interests in Washington.
But Mr. McCain, of Arizona, has drawn scrutiny for the fact that many of his
top advisers hail from K Street lobbying firms, including Rick Davis, his campaign
manager, and Charles Black, a senior adviser who only recently stepped down
as chairman of his lobbying firm to avoid accusations of conflict of interest.
Mr. McCain has steadfastly insisted that he does not give preferential treatment
to those lobbying him, even if they happen to be close friends. Although Senator
Barack Obama, who could become Mr. McCain's general election opponent,
has made a point of refusing to accept money from federally registered lobbyists,
Mr. McCain has continued to collect cash from them and allow them to bundle
campaign contributions. His supporters argue in his defense that Mr. McCain
has a record of independence and has, in fact, often clashed with corporate
interests over the years.
But the potential for conflicts of interest are obvious. Several of Mr. McCain's
top fund-raisers, for example, lobby for the telecommunications industry, which
regularly does business before the Senate Commerce Committee, where Mr. McCain
is a senior member and once served as chairman.
Kirk Blalock, of the lobbying firm Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock, leads Mr.
McCain's young professional group and has raised over $250,000 for him;
his clients include Sprint Nextel and Viacom.
Kyle McSlarrow, chief of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association,
the lobbying arm for the cable industry, has raised over $100,000 for Mr. McCain.
He and others in the cable industry recently butted heads with Mr. McCain over
a proposal that would allow customers to pick and choose which channels they
received.
In an interview Sunday, Wayne Berman, who is deputy finance chairman of the
McCain campaign and a veteran lobbyist whose clients include Verizon and Verizon
Wireless, dismissed the notion that some lobbyists might be raising money for
Mr. McCain to curry influence.
"When it comes to McCain," Mr. Berman said, "there's
just absolutely no concern whatsoever that he is going to be influenced by lobbyists.
He takes on issues as he sees them. It doesn't matter whether his best
friends are on the other side or not."
But the McCain campaign, which struggled over much of the past year in raising
money, is now seeking to emulate the record-setting money machine that powered
George W. Bush to victories in 2000 and 2004, bestowing special titles upon
bundlers who exceed certain financial targets.
Instead of "Pioneers" and "Rangers," as President Bush's
top fund-raisers were called, Mr. McCain is dubbing the 73 people so far who
have brought in $100,000 or more "Trailblazers," while the 33 who
brought in $250,000 or more are being called "Innovators."
Campaign finance watchdogs criticized the Pioneer and Ranger system for establishing
an elite class of donors, many of whom went on to ambassadorships and other
political appointments. But Mr. McCain's advisers believe the system offers
the best chance for the campaign to encourage as many people as possible to
raise large amounts of cash for him.
Mr. McCain has badly trailed both Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
in fund-raising - in March, for example, he brought in $15 million, compared
with Mr. Obama's $40 million and Mrs. Clinton's $20 million. While
Mr. McCain's Democratic counterparts, especially Mr. Obama, have enjoyed
much success in harvesting small-dollar donations over the Internet, Mr. McCain
has not built an effective Internet fund-raising machine, forcing him to depend
on a circle of wealthy donors.
But in a sign that Mr. McCain is still working on building up his bundler network,
fewer than 20 people on the list were former participants in the powerful Bush
Pioneer and Ranger system.
Most of the people on the list released Friday have been with the campaign
for months. Although the campaign has been working to sign up fund-raisers for
former candidates like Rudolph W. Giuliani and Mitt Romney, few of them have
had the opportunity to raise enough money yet to make the list.
But there are at least some new supporters of the campaign. B. C. Clippard,
who was national finance chairman of Fred D. Thompson's presidential campaign,
has now raised $100,000 or more for Mr. McCain. Former Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato
of New York also supported Mr. Thompson but recently helped organize a fund-raiser
in New York that netted over $1 million for Mr. McCain. Peter Newman, a former
fund-raiser for Mr. Giuliani from Pebble Beach, Calif., has since become a Trailblazer
for Mr. McCain.
The list also includes something of a who's who of his national finance
team, including Tom Loeffler, a former congressman, and Lewis Eisenberg, a former
Goldman Sachs partner and longtime player in Republican fund-raising. Some recent
notable additions to Mr. McCain's finance team are not on the list yet,
like Mercer Reynolds, an Ohio businessman who led Mr. Bush's fund-raising
in 2004 and had been seen as an important conduit to others from the Bush Pioneer
network for Mr. McCain.
It appears that at least some on the list had been hedging their bets earlier
in the primary season. About a fifth of the fund-raisers on the list appear
to have given to other candidates as well as Mr. McCain, splitting their contributions
fairly evenly between other Republican candidates and Democrats.
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Griff Palmer contributed reporting.
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