Obama accuses McCain aides of running lobbying businesses on campaign bus

[sniffa]

Barack Obama is turning up the heat on likely GOP presidential nominee John McCain. Campaigning in Ohio, Obama says McCain has lobbyists as key aides and that "many of them have been running their business on the campaign bus while they've been helping him."

The Democratic presidential hopeful also says McCain's health care plans reflect "the agenda of the drug and insurance lobbyists" who he says back McCain's campaign and use money and influence to "block real health care reform."

Obama says McCain's health care proposals rehash Bush policies that haven't worked and won't work.

A McCain spokeswoman says Obama's attacks are meant to distract attention from his lack of experience and plans for tax hikes.

Obama is also defending his campaign's attacks on Hillary Clinton's health care and trade stances, suggesting her angry remarks earlier today were timed for politial effect. Clinton accused Obama of distorting her positions.

http://www.kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=7916189&nav=HMO6HMaY

I wonder if HRC will use the tax hikes line now?

[babylonsister]

1. Dang, he's ambidextrous, able to attend to two fronts!

I hope he can soon concentrate on only one candidate. :crazy:

[sniffa]

4. It's nice to see him attacking McCain

That's going to be his opponent, so it's good he's going after him now. I continue to be impressed with his response team - they're quick, and usually deadly. :bounce:

[babylonsister]

5. I am totally impressed! Such a contrast, too. nt

[Pirate Smile]

2. "Top McCain Adviser Says He Does Much Of His Lobbying From Aboard Straight Talk Express!"

Top McCain Adviser Says He Does Much Of His Lobbying From Aboard Straight Talk Express!

By Greg Sargent - February 22, 2008, 5:50PM

This is pretty great. Today's Washington Post piece all about the fact that John McCain is surrounded by lobbyists on his campaign has gotten lots of attention today. It's key context for understanding the big Times story yesterday about his allegedly improper relationship with that female lobbyist, as well as his constant railing against lobbyists and "special interests."

But the piece has a lovely and very revealing little nugget buried in it that has passed unnoticed. It turns out that one of McCain's top advisers, lobbyist Charlie Black, does lots of his lobbying from the Straight Talk Express. From aboard the bus itself...

Of all the lobbyists involved in the McCain campaign, the most prominent is Black...even as Black provides a private voice and a public face for McCain, he also leads his lobbying firm, which offers corporate interests and foreign governments the promise of access to the most powerful lawmakers. Some of those companies have interests before the Senate and, in particular, the Commerce Committee, of which McCain is a member.
Black said he does a lot of his work by telephone from McCain's Straight Talk Express bus.

The snark fails...

Late Update: FireDogLake's TeddySanFran, who flagged this first, has a good line about Black: "I wonder if he expects a desk in McCain's Oval Office?"

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/top_mccain_adviser_says_he_doe.php

[starroute]

10. Charlie Black and the others are worse than just lobbyists

Back in 1972, there was a really dirty fight for leadership of the College Republicans. Karl Rove and Lee Atwater were on one side and Charlie Black, Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone were on the other. It got so nasty that then-RNC chairman George H.W. Bush had to step in to resolve things.

But after it was over, they all got pretty palsy, and both sides remained close to the Bush dynasty. Black, Manafort, and Stone formed a lobbying firm of that name which was active in the Reagan and Bush Sr. presidential campaigns, and Atwater went to work for them. Black and Stone were also involved in the 2000 Bush campaign, and Black remained close to the Bush administration.

These days, Charlie Black is a McCain advisor and also runs BKSH, which is a subsidiary of Burson-Marsteller, the PR firm run by Hillary's advisor Mark Penn.

Paul Manafort is a partner in the lobbying firm of Davis, Manafort and Freedman. His partner, Rick Davis, is on leave to work on the McCain campaign.

And Roger Stone -- who was always the sleaziest of the bunch -- has been spending his time sliming Hillary Clinton (http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14340.html), though he now seems to have switched his focus to Barack Obama (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/179835.php.)

Not a pleasant bunch -- and their various connections with the McCain campaign are distinctly a mark of dishonor.

[stillcool]

11. Check this out...

Blogslut had a post up earlier about this...

John McCain's top political strategist is Charlie Black. Charlie Black is Chairman of BKSH & Associates. BKSH is a division of Burson-Marsteller. Burson-Marsteller is owned by Hillary Clinton's top political strategist, Mark Penn.

**Charles R. "Charlie" Black, Jr., Chairman of BKSH & Associates, is "recognized as one of the nation's leading public affairs professionals.
**"BKSH is the name of leading-edge government relations consultancy for the 21st century. Created by the world's largest communications agency, Burson-Marsteller, it enables clients to mount US, pan-European and transatlantic campaigns. Wherever in the world BKSH operates, clients can rely on the same commitment: the promise of efficiency, effectiveness and excellence," the company boasts on its website.
---Charles Black is a listed as a lobbyist representing the Lincoln Group.

**Burson-Marsteller is the world's fifth largest PR company (Source: Council of PR Firms, 2002) and part of the WPP Group. According to a 2004 profile in The Hill, a Washington, DC newspaper, "This multinational PR behemoth has an active public-affairs practice led by Richard Mintz, who ran the media shop at the Department of Transportation during the Clinton administration. He also served as staff director for Hillary Clinton during the 1992 campaign. B-M has won awards recently for its work for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the "No on Proposition 54" campaign in California. Its public-affairs practice is bolstered by its affiliation with Direct Impact (grassroots marketing) and BKSH & Associates (lobbying)." <1>

**In May, 2007, the Nation magazine ran an article about the relationship between Burson-Marsteller's top executive world-wide, Mark Penn, and Hillary Clinton. "As Hillary Clinton charges toward the Democratic nomination for President, her campaign has a coterie of influential advisers. ... But perhaps the most important figure in the campaign is her pollster and chief strategist, Mark Penn, a combative workaholic. ... Yet Penn is no ordinary pollster. Beyond his connections to the Clintons, he not only polls for America's biggest companies but also runs one of the world's premier PR agencies ." <2>

**Burson-Marsteller has been hired by the two firms representing PMC Blackwater USA, McDermott Will & Emery and Crowell & Moring, to help with the account. <19>

**According to PRWeek, Burson subsidiary, BKSH & Associates, was hired through an internal connection at Blackwater to help with Erik Prince's October 2, 2007 testimony to Congress and that this "temporary engagement has ended".
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Charles_R._Black%2C_Jr.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=BKSH_%26_Associates

[bicentennial_baby]

3. Ruh roh...

:kick:

[Forkboy]

6. How will he ever handle right wing attacks?????!!!!!!!??????

[sniffa]

8. Or the Clinton machine for that matter

My fear is that he's going to be exposed as a member of the Crips. :scared:

[Forkboy]

9. He would be a Crip because they're wusses.

:yoiks:

[redstate_democrat]

15. OMG

You're funny. "the crips". Yeah, I saw him dancing on tv last night and he did a mean "crip walk". Hilarious.

[Swamp Rat]

7. Now, why would he do that?

:D

[angie_love]

12. wooot, go Obama, attack that decrepit man.

[ShadowLiberal]

13. That's what we should be doing, attacking the repugs, not each other, go Obama

Good to see that while the campaign has taken a negative turn in our primary lately that Obama is still going after McCain. We can't just bury each other in negative attacks and leave him looking like the clean innocent honest guy.

[TexasObserver]

14. John McCain IS the Manchurian Candidate.

He has totally abandoned every position that offends the core of the Republican party, the ones that made him a "maverick" and gave him middle voter street cred.

He's a walking, talking puppet.