The Hollywood Liberal

The Republican front runner and until know shoo-in for the nominantion has been hit by twin blasts by a 12 guage shotgun today. First off a report out of the New York Times is saying that McCain has been having an affair with a woman over 30 years younger than him, he also apparently has been doing some favors for the woman who is, get this, a Lobbyist. McCain you silly old man. Did you really think she was hanging out with you for your good looks. And what will McCains’s wife think of this? Then at the same time some people want to talk to him about loans, and public funding and lines of credit that he used on his campaign. So McCain seems to be every bit a crooked as Bush, and the rest of the Republicans, no new news there. You know this won’t be any detriment to his nomination because only Democrats should be taken to task for affairs and illegal dealings with lobbyists, and illegal loans. Wasn’t McCain a part of the Campaign Finance Law. The Republicans will love this guy. You can read all the sordid details here.

NY Times
For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk

WASHINGTON — 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.

McCain Loan Raises FEC Questions

WASHINGTON (AP) – The government’s top campaign finance regulator says John McCain can’t drop out of the primary election’s public financing system until he answers questions about a loan he obtained to kickstart his once faltering presidential campaign.

Federal Election Commission Chairman David Mason, in a letter to McCain this week, said the all-but-certain Republican nominee needs to assure the commission that he did not use the promise of public money to help secure a $4 million line of credit he obtained in November.

McCain’s lawyer, Trevor Potter, said Wednesday evening that McCain has withdrawn from the system and that the FEC can’t stop him. Potter, who was FEC chairman in 1994, said the campaign did not encumber the public funds in any way.

"Well, it was done before in another campaign. … We think it’s perfectly legal. One of our advisers is a former chairman of the FEC, and we are confident that it was an appropriate thing to do," McCain told a news conference Thursday.