Straight Talk and Cold Cash
Critics of the Washington influence game say that McCain's acceptance of so much special-interest money doesn't comport with his reformer image. "McCain has used every avenue possible to raise money," says Kent Cooper, a political money expert and former official at the Federal Election Commission. "He's certainly been someone out in front screaming about special interests' influence in Congress, and yet it seems when people run for president, no one is a special interest."
Beginnings. McCain, now 70, first jumped into elective politics when a House seat in the Phoenix area opened up in 1982. He proved to be a tireless campaigner and savvy fundraiser, grabbing support from pacs and well-heeled backers, including an Arizona developer named Charles Keating. Federal records show that McCain received $110,000 in campaign donations from Keating, his associates, and friends in his two House campaigns and in his first Senate race in 1986.
The Keating friendship eventually led to the biggest stain on McCain's career—the so-called Keating Five scandal. McCain and four other senators became entangled after they attempted to get federal regulators to lay off Keating's faltering savings and loan in 1987. The institution later failed, and Keating emerged as a symbol of lawlessness that plagued the industry. A Senate inquiry concluded in 1991 that McCain "exercised poor judgment in intervening with the regulators'' but had not violated Senate rules or federal laws.
McCain, like most lawmakers, has always sought funds from special-interest pacs. All told, McCain has taken in about $5.7 million from such groups. In the current presidential campaign, he has received a little more than $300,000 from pacs, including maximum gifts of $5,000 each from old reliables such as AT&T, Verizon Communications, and Qwest Communications; in the 2000 presidential campaign, he raised $405,600 from such groups; in two House races and four Senate campaigns, McCain raised $4.3 million from pacs, or about one fourth of the total of $16 million that has flowed into his coffers, according to a U.S. News analysis of campaign reports. His leadership PAC, Straight Talk America, has received some $686,000 from such groups since its creation in early 2000.
But relying on pac money as a measure of special-interest donations can be misleading. Special-interest money often comes directly out of the pockets of lobbyists or from others looking for legislative support. A case in point: On a December night in 2005, McCain collected $150,000 for Straight Talk America, thanks to a dinner hosted by lobbyist Scott Reed, who represents financial services companies, Internet-related clients, and Indian tribes, among others. Reed confirmed that almost all of the money came from individual contributors, including some corporate clients. Others at the dinner, he says, were lobbyists and friends who wanted to support McCain's efforts to elect Republicans to Congress in 2006.
McCain has been courting the Establishment for years. In his 2000 presidential run, for instance, McCain drew heavy support from some of Washington's most powerful lobbyists, including Kenneth Duberstein, the former chief of staff in the Reagan White House; William Ball III, the former secretary of the Navy and now managing director of the lobbying firm of McCain's current national finance chairman, Thomas Loeffler; and Timothy McKone, an influential telecommunications lobbyist. Some prominent lobbyists are playing big fundraising roles in the current campaign and represent clients who have sought help from the Commerce Committee.
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