McCain Lobbyist Problem
I don’t claim to have any inside info on the New York Times story about John McCain’s purported relationship with telecom lobbyist Vicki Iseman. I do know a lot about the telecom business and during the period John McCain chaired the Senate Commerce Committee, he was the only person on The Hill that mattered as far as cable and telecom companies were concerned. Access to McCain, would have given any lobbyist a huge advantage right up to the end of 2006, when the Republicans lost their majority. I can also say that McCain was much deeper in the pocket of the S & L bandit Charles Keating than any of the other Keating Five and yet he got off with the least punishment and stayed in the Senate after all his co-conspirators quit.
UPDATE-After a little digging, its clear that Vicki Iseman’s main client in the late 1990′s was Bud Paxson, a man who’s fortune relied on playing the Washington regulators. Paxson had helped found the Home Shopping Network and managed to unload it to Barry Diller in 1996 after Diller had resigned from running Fox Networks and had a brief flirtation with QVC. Paxson then turned his efforts in to cobbling together a string of third tier TV stations (many of them UHF stations broadcasting 24 hour infomercials).Miss Iseman’s bio above boasts about her involvement in the 1996 Telecom legislation “to secure cable access to Broadcast stations”. For Paxson, this was critical because most of his stations did not warrant “must carry” status and cable providers were not anxious to give up precious channels to a bunch of infomercial stations. 1n 1997, McCain moved up to the Chairman spot on Commerce, the controller of media destiny. Bud Paxson announced that he had been born again since 1986 and he was going to create a new network out of this mottled group of assets, saying he “was unhappy with the amount of sex, violence, and profanity on network television and decided to create a network which would carry only programming devoid of such content”. This was the birth of PAX TV and his lobbyist task was to force the cable companies to carry all of his stations. Now Bud wasn’t really in this to save America from smut, but to sell his “Network” to someone else. For this he needed some high placed friends to lean on the cable and satellite networks, with the implied threat that he had juice with the Chairman of the all important commerce committee. Clearly as Ms Iseman made her rounds of the big Cable and satellite companies her boasts of that “juice” got back to McCain’s staff. This prompted John Weaver, a key McCain aid to confront Ms Iseman.
“Our political messaging during that time period centered around taking on the special interests and placing the nation’s interests before either personal or special interest,” Mr. Weaver continued. “Ms. Iseman’s involvement in the campaign, it was felt by us, could undermine that effort.”
Mr. Weaver added that the brief conversation was only about “her conduct and what she allegedly had told people, which made its way back to us.” He declined to elaborate.
McCain acknowledges writing letters to the FCC on behalf of Paxton.
Mr. Paxson was impatient for F.C.C. approval of a television deal, and Ms. Iseman acknowledged in an e-mail message to The Times that she had sent to Mr. McCain’s staff information for drafting a letter urging a swift decision.
Mr. McCain complied. He sent two letters to the commission, drawing a rare rebuke for interference from its chairman. In an embarrassing turn for the campaign, news reports invoked the Keating scandal, once again raising questions about intervening for a patron.
Paxton’s exit strategy worked. He got enough carriage on cable and satellite with his meager network of old reruns, religous programming and a couple of new series that he got NBC to buy into Pax TV. As soon as that happened, Bud pulled his golden parachute and left with several hundred million dollars. Soon after it was announced that the new owners would rebrand PAX as i, in order to reflect a new strategy of “providing an independent broadcast platform for producers and syndicators who desire to reach a national audience.” That means it went back to informercials.
McCain, of course, “dismissed reports of his close relationship with a lobbyist nine years ago as ‘gutter politics’”:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/21/johnmccain.uselections2008
Strangely enough, this report doesn’t actually mention whether McCain’s people deny there was any romance between these two crazy kids.
Also, I’m so glad someone finally confirmed something about Obama that I had suspected all along:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/21/barackobama.uselections2008
So life is reality in this scenario, eh? What a twist. My question is, does Obama or his campaign have anything to do with the news report? And what, if any, effect will this have on Huckabee’s ability to stay in the race?
The New York Times has been working on this story for six months and only published it today because the New Republic had gotten wind of it and was threatening to scoop them. Huckabee says he’s in until at least March 4. It will be interesting to see if Limbaugh comes to McCain’s rescue on the air today.
[...] http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/mccain-lobbyist-problem/ [...]
Drudge broke this months ago…
“The long-winded article The New York Times dropped on McCain Wednesday night falls between an impeccable investigative project and the “hit-and-run” smear job his campaign calls it. It is a meringue of tantalizing hints and innuendo about the steamy nexus of sex and power. It’s all there – except a clear and firm direct allegation, let alone proof.”
“You either have the goods, or you don’t.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/02/21/2008-02-21_tales_tall_on_innuendo_short_on_proof-1.html?print=1&page=all
Of course, each of these sources had reason to keep the story from breaking. But what actually pushed it into publication? The reporters working on the investigation declined to comment. In an email to me on February 19, Keller wrote: “This sounds like a pointless exercise to me–speculating about reporting that may or may not result in an article. But if that’s what Special Correspondents of The New Republic do, speculate away. When we have something to say, we’ll say it in the paper.”
Late in the day on February 19, Baquet sent a final draft of the Times piece to Keller and Times managing editor Jill Abramson in New York. After a series of discussions, the three editors decided to publish the investigation. “We published the story when it was ready which is what we always do,” Baquet told TNR this morning. He added: “Nothing forced our hand. Nothing pushed us to move faster other than our own natural desire that we wanted to get a story in the paper that met all of our standards.”
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=8b7675e4-36de-43f5-afdd-2a2cd2b96a24
[...] I care that this lobbyist in question, Vicki Iseman who :hearts: McCain, btw – bragged about the influence she had with the Senator, and that her clients frequently had business in front of the Commerce Committee that McCain chaired, such as the Home Shopping Network’s Bud Paxton. [...]
So I read the whole story from the Times and I am puzzled by the fact that it really is just innuendo and old news dressed up for today’s dance. No one has pictures or tapes or proof beyond their own concerns. It’s a non-story that is worthless except to remind us that McCain hasn’t always been able to walk the straight and narrow in the world of politics. As far as the love story, that is just gossip and absolutely worthless without proof.
Politically, in the chess game of the race, this could turn out to work for McCain but just like the bullshit that is landing on Michelle Obama it is worth no more than a passing thought or two.
The reason this story has gotten so much attention is because of McCain’s alleged relationship with Ms. Iseman. It’s unfortunate because that charge has the least evidence to support it, and it masks what I consider more important charges, the potential political favors he gave to lobbyists and others in the past.
In that light, thanks for the background on the important part of the story, Jon.
“The decline and fall of the New York Times accelerates, with today’s anonymously-sourced hit piece on John McCain. I will leave to others like Rick Moran and Ed Morrissey the debunking of the story itself. What concerns me is the manner in which the CEO of the organization has jettisoned standards that once would have ruled out publication of such material.
“A fish rots from the head” goes an old Chinese saying. If it is true, as reported, that the story was controversial within the Times, and only ran because the paper feared that The New Republic would publicize the office politics at the Times over publication of the story, the Sulzberger’s responsibility is all the greater. His inability to set clear guidelines, hire capable editors, and maintain newsroom harmony and discipline was about to be exposed to the public. To protect his hind quarters, he went with a disastrously bad story.”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/02/pinch_sulzbergers_legacy.html
What’s the rub? If John McCain did have a dilliance with a lobbyist, especially one that looked like THAT, Go Johnny Go. He may well get my vote for showing me that some stuffy whitebread Republican has a heart that has blood flowing through it and a can get a hard on for women. This guy is human and deserves my vote. For the first time I am proud of a Republican politician. At least he has his eyes on attractive adult women. Get some, Johnny get all ya can, Lad.
This bruhaha over McCain and the lobbyist is yet another example of political machines throwing gasoline on the fire of commercial journalism to get a story, and if there is no story, goddammit, create one. We’ve got news to tell and magazines to shell and advertising to sell, and so hype the hell out of the picayune. This is the most human John McCain has ever appeared.
“If anything, this makes the whole episode even more puzzling. The four reporters on this piece thought they had “nailed it”? Reasonable people can differ on whether they had enough to hang a story on, but there’s no way that they “nailed” anything.”
The ever progressive Washington Monthly:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_02/013172.php
Jason – my thoughts exactly. Frankly, I am less interested in rumors of a liason than I am in the talking out of both sides of his mouth. He’s either for real lobby reform or he’s playing the usual Washington dance. It stinks because it shows that he’s about as trustworthy as Hillary Clinton.
Interesting observation by zestypete.
My original take seems to be born out by the report in today’s LA Times that McCain has been enhanced in the eyes of conservative Repugs, and his camp his using this event to raise funds for his campaign against the evil liberal media. The shit just keeps getting deeper.
Morgan- Don’t get too far out on a limb defending McCain.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/114505
I’m not defending anyone. I’m attacking the NYT. I’m only concerned with the story as presented by Keller.
Whether they had sex or he was corrupted by Paxon, that’s worth digging. Hell, prove a quid pro quo and they can tar and feather him. I’m no fan of PAX scoring bandwidth on the back of family values.
But, publishing with what they published, that’s my issue. Keller is a two faced… while I love Drudge, the NYT shouldn’t hold itself out as “higher.”
Look the story was about McCain and lobbyists. The sex part was secondary. It’s not that McCain doesn’t have a hound dog rep. Already, as I showed you above, his denials of talking to Paxson have been disproven.
from th rasmussen daily tracking poll: “McCain now leads Barack Obama 46% to 44% and Hillary Clinton 48% to 44%. McCain has led both Democrats on each night of individual tracking since the controversial New York Times article on McCain was released earlier this week”
Clayton- Limbaugh and the right wing radio machine are now coming to McCain’s side as rhbee predicted. He may have a burst of popularity, but I don’t think it will sustain until November.