talk.politics.misc

McCain & Lobbyists
Posted by Bill Allison, December 31st, 2007 =B7

The Washington Post's Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and John Solomon report on
Sen. John McCain's ties to lobbyists-especially the 32 lobbyists who
are designated fundraisers (the preferred term is bundlers, but there
are more colorful terms available to us) for his campaign.

The story does a good job of identifying who these lobbyists are and
what interests their firms represent. The Post references this joint
study by Public Citizen and the Campaign Finance Institute, but it
looks to me like their numbers are different than the Post's. The
study says that McCain has 20 lobbyists among his bundlers, not 32-see
this table for the numbers. Public Citizen's White House For Sale site
does say there are 32 lobbyists working as bag men for McCain, but the
database doesn't include a field that identifies which of the dozens
and dozens of those bag men are registered to lobby. Still, it's an
incredible resource for looking into the campaigns. I wish we had a
similar resource for congressional candidates.

The Post article doesn't mention McCain's topping the list of top
donors to his campaign so far in the 2008 cycle is Blank Rome LLP, a
law firm with a robust lobbying arm.

/2007/12/31/mccain-lobbyists/