Head of McCain's campaign got $30 thou a month for five years to help Fannie/Freddie duck regs

[bigtree]

Loan Titans Paid McCain Adviser Nearly $2 Million


September 21, 2008

Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

Mr. McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has recently begun campaigning as a critic of the two companies and the lobbying army that helped them evade greater regulation as they began buying riskier mortgages with implicit federal backing. He and his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, have donors and advisers who are tied to the companies.

But last week the McCain campaign stepped up a running battle of guilt by association when it began broadcasting commercials trying to link Mr. Obama directly to the government bailout of the mortgage giants this month by charging that he takes advice from Fannie Mae’s former chief executive, Franklin Raines, an assertion both Mr. Raines and the Obama campaign dispute.

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions.

“The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month . . .


read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/us/politics/22mccain.html?ref=politics&pagewanted=print

[Richard Steele]

1. K&R

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. This is HUGE!

thank you NY Times!

[bigtree]

8. McCain camp attacks New York Times (waaaaah!)

09/22/08 12:12 PM

A senior adviser to Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday that The New York Times is “completely, totally, 150 percent in the tank” for Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

Steve Schmidt, McCain’s senior adviser, unleashed an attack on the paper during a conference call with reporters in response to a question about a story appearing in Monday's edition. That article is about McCain campaign manager Rick Davis’s time lobbying for an organization that carried the banner for recent bailed out mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“Whatever The New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization,” Schmidt said.


http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/mccain-camp-attacks-new-york-times-2008-09-22.html

[Triana]

3. If this was a DEMOCRAT right now?

He'd be THROUGH. DONE.

But since it's McInsane, the media will ignore it.

[bigtree]

5. we've been banging pretty hard on Davis

I agree that he'd be toast right now if he was Obama's campaign manager.

[Betsy Ross]

4. K & R n/t

[KathieG]

6. Holy sheep shit! This needs to be in a commercial!

:kick:

[bigtree]

7. yep. We put out one today about McCain saying he wanted to make 'healthcare like banking'

They put out a lame one about Rezco

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/09/9829_mccain_corruption_obama_davis_freddie_mac.html

:kick:

[Rosa Luxemburg]

10. We have to keep saying it is the McCain/Bush twins fault

:kick:

[Subdivisions]

9. Holy fuckin' shit! KICK! n/t