The McCain Gamble

John McCain’s Washington is just more of the same. It is a rigged roulette wheel. No matter how you spin it, George Bush and lobbyists always win.

McCain campaign awash in Washington lobbyists

McCain’sLobbyists.com is a campaign information resource established by Campaign Money Watch and based on data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan organization that tracks campaign finance data.

Ben Stein on Sarah Palin and the economy

Ben Stein is more than a little worried about his money.

“She should have Henry Kissinger babysitting her.”

Ouch!

John McCain doesn’t think Americans are willing to work hard to support their families

Is McCain’s VP slot for sale to the highest bidder?

This commentary in the British paper The Independent, puts the money angle front and center:

The Republican hunt for a Vice-President has focused on one word: money. Panicked conservative commentators and senators have urged McCain to find a super-rich man to bolt on to the ticket, fast. Why? Because he could “invest” tens of millions of his own cash in the campaign – and persuade his friends to do the same. George W Bush’s former chief speechwriter David Frum says megabucks Mitt Romney is the current favourite for Republican number two.

McCain following the money? Why, yes, there is a bit of a pattern here.

McCain has already sailed full-speed in the direction of his super-rich donors. His campaign has taken a fortune from the oil companies. In return, he promises to give them $4bn in tax cuts a year, to drill off the coast of the US, and to maintain US troops in Iraq even as the country’s prime minister asks them to leave. It’s a logical next step to put a representative of the super-rich on the ticket.

Yet some naïve observers are shocked – shocked! – because McCain built a reputation as a campaign reformer. But they forget the context. McCain only began to call for restrictions on corrupt donations after he was revealed to have taken a great tide of them. In the late 1980s he took money from a fraudster called Charles Keating, and in return lobbied hard for the government regulators to stop looking into his affairs. It worked. Keating went on to steal billions. McCain’s reputation was busted – until he tried to make Big Money itself the issue.

But even as he was apparently campaigning for change, McCain continued taking donations from the super-rich and then lobbying federal regulators on their behalf. Now he even says he will appoint Supreme Court justices like Antonin Scalia, who is committed to striking down campaign finance reform. Pairing McCain with a super-rich tycoon would be a perfect symbol of what the world can expect from his presidency.