DNC comments on Walmart greeter McCain - Charles Keating was Mrs. McCain's business partner

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http://www.democrats.org/a/2008/02/mccain_myth_bus_5.php

McCain Myth Buster: John McCain and Lobbying Reform

February 21, 2008

After casting himself as a "Maverick" in 2000, the new John McCain is walking in lockstep with President Bush, pandering to the right wing of the Republican Party, and embracing the ideology he once denounced. On the campaign trail McCain has callously abandoned many of his previously held positions, even contradicted himself, in a blatant attempt to remake himself into a candidate Republicans can accept in 2008. So just who is the real John McCain? The Democratic National Committee will present a daily fact aimed at exposing the man behind the myth.

Today's McCain Myth: John McCain is a reformer who can be trusted to reduce the role of lobbyists and campaign cash in Washington.

John McCain has worked hard to cultivate his image as an outsider and a "maverick" who can be trusted to reform Washington by standing up to entrenched special interests and reducing the power and influence of lobbyists. But after 25 years in Washington, the real John McCain is just like the other D.C. insiders he rails against on the campaign trail.

John McCain has a pattern of doing favors for friends and donors throughout his political career. During the Keating Five scandal, McCain improperly intervened with federal regulators to protect his friend and campaign contributor--and his wife's business partner--Charles Keating. Now, McCain reportedly intervened on behalf of clients of a lobbyist whose clients had contributed tens of thousands of dollars to his campaigns. The Federal Communications Commission even rebuked McCain for interfering in a regulatory review.

At the same time, the Federal Election Commission has informed the McCain campaign that it "can't drop out of the primary election's public financing system until he answers questions about a loan he obtained to kickstart his once faltering presidential campaign." According to the letter, McCain "needs to assure the commission that he did not use the promise of public money to help secure a $4 million line of credit he obtained in November" before he can opt out of the system. The report raises questions about whether McCain will ignore the FEC's campaign spending limits anyway.

John McCain's "do as I say, not as I do" approach to ethics and lobbying reform can be called a lot of things. "Straight talk" isn't one of them.

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1. kick. nt.