Tag Archive for: John McCain

Remember Christopher Ward? The guy who set up a bunch of interlocking campaign funds at the NRCC, all the while inventing audits that made it look like it was kosher, but whom the FBI is very busy investigating for fraud? Well, key to the interlocking campaign accounts were his Victory Funds. I still owe you all a series of posts describing how the money worked. But for a short summary of how I think they work, you can read this Politico story describing how McCain plans to finance his campaign.

Indeed, to help counter their money deficit, McCain strategists now suggest that the proper comparison should be between the combined assets of the campaign and the RNC and that of their opponent and the far less flush DNC.

“The McCain camp is funded jointly” is how one adviser describes it.

By taking federal funds — something they intend to do, campaign manager Rick Davis told a closed-door meeting of chiefs of staff on Capitol Hill last week — McCain will receive $84 million.

That money, McCain aides say, will be bolstered by the $20 million in coordinated funds that they can legally direct the RNC to spend on anything they want.

Further, they’ll rely on the committee-campaign joint Victory Fund run out of the RNC, which allows contributions of up to $28,500 per person — far more than the $2,300 donors can give to individual candidates.

The Victory dollars will go into the states and be used to hire staffers, who in some cases will serve as the de facto McCain aides.

Other elements of the campaign, such as those tasked with developing coalitions and lining up surrogates, will also be placed at the RNC to save on overhead.

“Those functions that can legally be done at either [the campaign or RNC], we’ll err on the side of doing them at the RNC,” Black says. “The whole thing is under one umbrella in the way we are budgeting.” [my emphasis]

This is not to say McCain is breaking the law (aside from the campaign finance limits which he has already broken, that is). But it does say McCain is choosing a finance method that the Republican Party has already shown it cannot manage properly without someone committing fraud and–potentially–sifting money off the top for other expenditures.

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The news that McCain called his wife a "trollop" and a "cunt" …

The Real McCain by Cliff Schecter, which will arrive in bookstores next month, reports an angry exchange between McCain and his wife that happened in full view of aides and reporters during a 1992 campaign stop. An advance copy of the book was obtained by RAW STORY.

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain’s intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain’s hair and said, "You’re getting a little thin up there." McCain’s face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." McCain’s excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

… makes me wonder the following:

• Has John McCain ever called Vicki Iseman a trollop and a cunt? Not that I’m suggesting they slept together, of course. It just seems like a remarkably effective way to do what his campaign tried to do in 1999–convince Iseman stop hanging around with McCain once and for all.
• George Bush has been famous for his, um, deft handling of his female counterparts–most notably Angela Merkel. Is this kind of treatment what McCain plans to use to go Bush one better in the realm of diplomacy?
• Did John Kerry ever call his wife, Theresa Heinz Kerry, a trollop and a cunt? I’m guessing the answer’s no. Aside from the snuggly image Kerry and his wife always presented when they campaigned together in 2004, Theresa was willing to contribute a sizable chunk of her fortune to Kerry’s presidential campaign; Cindy McCain seems to have lost her interest in contributing her fortune to support McCain’s ambition … oh, somewhere around 1992.
• How will Phyllis Schlafly and Kate O’Beirne spin McCain’s treatment of his spouse as a victory for women’s rights?
• Do McCain’s staffers call him a "trollop" when he plasters on makeup for televised appearances? Can we call him a "trollop" when he wears make-up (preferably from some distance)?
• Do you think Meghan McCain will blog this story?

In its report on the latest lobbyist to join the McCain team, the Politico focuses on how John Green will help McCain coordinate his messaging with votes in Congress.

With two senators in the race — McCain for the Republicans, and either Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama for the Democrats — Senate leaders have a unique opportunity to create both opportunities and pitfalls for their parties’ candidates by forcing votes on taxes, national security, health care and energy.

“The future basically revolves around our candidate for president, who will be principal messenger for where Republicans think America ought to go in the next four years,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “What we do on the proactive side — the offense, if you will — needs to be closely coordinated with our candidate for president, without … turning the Senate floor into a sparring match between the two candidates.”

But, as John Kerry points out, the minority party doesn’t really get to coordinate timing for actions in Congress.

Although Kerry credited Daschle and Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) with trying to coordinate with his presidential campaign, he said then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was “always maneuvering to schedule votes and set a debate that amplified the Bush-Cheney campaign’s attacks.”

“There was a lot of counter-scheduling,” Kerry said. “I remember flying all night back from New Mexico for a vote that Bill Frist canceled as soon as we got back. You bet it matters who runs the Senate when you’re out on the trail.”

So I wonder whether the Politico actually misunderstands what Green’s role (who, after all, is described for his ties with Trent Lott, not any currently-serving GOP leader) will be. Consider the following description.

Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has engaged a leading GOP lobbyist to coordinate his message and travel schedule with congressional Republicans — the most concrete sign yet that the biggest battleground in the 2008 presidential race may not be Pennsylvania or Ohio or Florida’s I-4 corridor but rather the floor of the United States Senate.

And then consider what the GOP meant–in the previous several election cycles–when they discussed coordinating message and travel.

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