Jackson Free Press

The New York Times created a national firestorm today when it published a story about a close relationship McCain had in the past with a female telecommunications lobbyist. Apparently, his aides were worried enough about the way it looked to ask him to distance himself, and there is concern that he may have done favors for her clients. I guess you call this the "February Surprise." The story begins:

Early in Senator John McCain's first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client's corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman's access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist's client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.

Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.

It had been just a decade since an official favor for a friend with regulatory problems had nearly ended Mr. McCain's political career by ensnaring him in the Keating Five scandal. In the years that followed, he reinvented himself as the scourge of special interests, a crusader for stricter ethics and campaign finance rules, a man of honor chastened by a brush with shame.

But the concerns about Mr. McCain's relationship with Ms. Iseman underscored an enduring paradox of his post-Keating career. Even as he has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards, his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest.

Previous Commentsshow

Saw this on the news - a lot - this morning, and some of the folks defending McCain practically called the NYT a bunch of liberal liars. This is going to get really ugly. I feel it coming.

LatashaWillis

Feb 21 2008

Well, it's either it's true, or it's not. And if his campaign advisers were so worried about the appearance of impropriety and had to beg him to spend less time with her, then that is a story. And then there are the issues of her clients.

DonnaLadd

Feb 21 2008

Even though sleeze issues like this have no place in a political campaign (since it prevents the real issues from being debated), the same ones who are calling out the "liberal media" for this story are the same ones who detested the "liberal media" for not reporting on Bill Clinton's impeccadillos. Turnabout is fair play.

golden eagle

Feb 21 2008

The Huckster's gotta be a little happier this morning.

Jeff Lucas

Feb 21 2008

Even though sleeze issues like this have no place in a political campaign ( I'm not sure I agree. In fact, I don't agree. Questionable integrity of candidates—whether with lady friends, or lobbyists, or both—is a vital question for our elected leaders. The truth is, not enough were asked by "liberal" media, or any other real media, when Clinton was running for office. His womanizing (and harassment, etc.) should have taken more seriously during his first campaign and not at the last hour (and I'm totally guilty on that one myself and have regretted voting for him for years), just as we shouldn't be returning someone impeached for that crap (and the lies to cover it) to the White House, even as First Man. This is legitimate, and it doesn't matter the party of the person. If it was against Obama, I'd say the same thing.

DonnaLadd

Feb 21 2008

I can see where you would disagree with me on this, but it just really concerns me whenever real issues are placed on the backburner for tabloid news stories. Who McCain, Obama, Bill Clinton or even Hillary Clinton sleep with won't prevent another family from losing their home in the mortgage industry crisis or getting us out of Iraq. However, I can see your point about integrity and other character issues. After all, if a man can cheat on his wife and lie about it, then what more would he do in such a position of power such as being president. Even if I don't like all the sleaziness in campaigns, it is what it is and I am interested in seeing how conservatives who have been reluctant in supporting McCain really think of him now. And I'll be a hypocrite by grabbing a bag of popcorn and enjoying it all.

golden eagle

Feb 21 2008

Well, at least there is proof that the Executive Editor of NYT has had an affair, and apparently gets around! Looks like he and Sen. Kerry liked to pass the "Gin" around! ;-)

pikersam

Feb 21 2008

Well, I sure am glad he's not running for office and the taxpayers don't pay his salary. I think I'm missing the point. Or someone is.

DonnaLadd

Feb 21 2008

McCain's biggest problem is that the record doesn't match his denials about being the perfectly ethical senator who didn't try to help special interests (and his good woman friend's clients): In late 1998, Senator John McCain sent an unusually blunt letter to the head of the Federal Communications Commission, warning that he would try to overhaul the agency if it closed a broadcast ownership loophole. The letter, and two later ones signed by Mr. McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, urged the commission to abandon plans to close a loophole vitally important to Glencairn Ltd., a client of Vicki Iseman, a lobbyist. The provision enabled one of the nation’s largest broadcasting companies, Sinclair, to use a marketing agreement with Glencairn, a far smaller broadcaster, to get around a restriction barring single ownership of two television stations in the same city. At a news conference on Thursday, Mr. McCain denounced an article in The New York Times that described concerns by top advisers a decade ago about his ties to Ms. Iseman, a partner at the firm Alcalde & Fay. He said he never had any discussions with his advisers about Ms. Iseman and never did any favors for any lobbyist. One of the McCain campaign’s statements about his dealings with Ms. Iseman was challenged by news accounts on Friday. In discussing letters he wrote regulators about a deal involving another of Ms. Iseman’s clients, Lowell W. Paxson, the campaign had said the senator had never spoken to her or anyone from the company. But Mr. McCain acknowledged in a 2002 deposition that he had sent the letters after meeting with Mr. Paxson. On Glencairn, the campaign said Mr. McCain’s efforts to retain the loophole were not done at Ms. Iseman’s request. It said Mr. McCain was merely directing the commission to “not act in a manner contradictory to Congressional intent.” Mr. McCain wrote in the letters that a 1996 law, the telecommunications act, required the loophole; a legal opinion by the staff of the commission took the opposite view. A review of the record, including agency records now at the National Archives and interviews with participants, shows that Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, played a significant role in killing the plan to eliminate the loophole. His actions followed requests by Ms. Iseman and lobbyists at other broadcasting companies, according to lobbying records and Congressional aides. Full article.

DonnaLadd

Feb 23 2008

Are you going to post the Ombudsman's response to the article? In it they say that it was out of line for the editor and the writers to "imply" that a relationship had occurred. They point out that they had a good story if you just focus on the lobbying relationship; but, to put the image in the heads of Americans that a sexual relationship occurred was wrong! And, dominates the story! Just wondering since you've posted another NYT story today? The ombudsman goes on to point out that no matter what happened the public will be focused on the implied "sex" part of the story thus diminishing any good that may of come from the other aspects of the story. So, if you are wondering what you missed earlier - this is it. The article was notable for what it did not say: It did not say what convinced the advisers that there was a romance. It did not make clear what McCain was admitting when he acknowledged behaving inappropriately — an affair or just an association with a lobbyist that could look bad. And it did not say whether Weaver, the only on-the-record source, believed there was a romance. The Times did not offer independent proof, like the text messages between Detroit’s mayor and a female aide that The Detroit Free Press disclosed recently, or the photograph of Donna Rice sitting on Gary Hart’s lap. In other news, the Detroit mayor is... well being the Detroit mayor, which is why he is the second worse (maybe the first) mayor in America next to Frank Melton.

pikersam

Feb 24 2008

I hadn't seen it, yet, but thanks for posting it. I love the NYT ombudsman's stuff. It's always thought-provoking. And I can buy their point, although I still think it's important to tell the public if his advisers were warning him about the appearance of impropriety at this stage in the election. Had the Times and other media done a better job of that with Clinton, maybe the Democratic primary would have gone a different direction and not set off this whole nightmarish Clinton-Bush chain of events that we're still recovering from. It's also been clear from the day they ran the story that the helping-lobbyist angle is the most substantive considering that he is running a campaign based on never, ever having done such a thing. In other words, he's a liar. And I find that sad.

DonnaLadd

Feb 24 2008

I'd say the NY Times's bias is showing on this one... at least on the 'romance' front. They could have told the lobbyist part without goign so far down the road that the lobbyist was probably his Lewinsky ...

gipper

Feb 24 2008