McCain Aide Trades Access for Cash

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis and Obama chief strategist David Axelrod went mano-a-mano on Fox News yesterday.

The debate itself was virtually unwatchable, filled with the kind of interruptions and shouting that makes TV news difficult to stomach. But the last exchange was particularly memorable, when Axelrod called out Davis for "making millions of dollars selling access to public officials, as Rick has done selling access to Senator McCain." Here's the exchange (if you wanna watch the video, comes after the 7 minute mark)

AXELROD: Do you sell access to Senator McCain?

DAVIS: No, I don't.

AXELROD: Is that how you've made millions of dollars?

DAVIS: Not at all.

AXELROD: You've never done that. You've never -- nobody's ever been told that they ought to hire you...

DAVIS: .let me ask you a question. Is this the kind of...

AXELROD: ... if they want to get to Senator McCain?

DAVIS: ... politics that you're...

AXELROD: I'm asking you a question.

DAVIS: Character assassination has become the hallmark of the Obama campaign.

It's hardly "character assassination" to suggest that Davis has profited greatly because of his ties to McCain. It's more like a fact. Just read the New York Times article on Davis' ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or a recent article in The Nation by Mark Ames and myself detailing Davis Manafort's lucrative contracts in Eastern Europe and close ties to Kremlin-connected Russian oligarchs.

Why was Davis paid nearly $2 million to advocate for Fannie and Freddie? According to the Times: "The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again," said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae.

Why was Davis paid several million dollars to run a little-noticed independence referendum campaign for the small but strategic country of Montenegro (now a key ally of the Kremlin)? As Ames and I reported:

The top McCain aide was as much a political symbol as a campaign consultant. "I think the Montenegrins hired Rick to have political cover--it was important to show they had support from the United States," said an American democracy expert who's worked in Montenegro.

Nobody in Russia or Montenegro or Ukraine or Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac would've cared about Rick Davis if it wasn't for John McCain.

The real question for McCain is this: how can you promise to clean up Washington when your campaign advisors represent precisely the problem that needs fixing?

Comments (5)

1. Oh come on, Mr Berman...

   their VICE-PRESIDENTIAL candidate just got caught violating an ethics act.

   You think they still have any credibility on "cleaning up Washington"???

   LOL

   Posted by Maskdelta at 10/13/2008 @ 3:15pm

2. Hey, it's over.

   The hell with McC Palin & Co.

   Start in on what Obama should be doing from Nov.5th.

   Treat him like the president he will very soon be ... start in now on his appointments & policies.

   Posted by sloper at 10/13/2008 @ 3:50pm

3. Posted by sloper at 10/13/2008 @ 3:50pm

   We can't be over-confident - we need to focus on finishing the job.

   Sure we are up and in a great position to win, but taking our eye off the ball now could lead to a disastrous finish.

   Posted by Metteyya at 10/13/2008 @ 4:14pm

4. It happens from time to time that a politician, or a politician's professional spokesperson, remarks appreciatively that the US-American people are "tired of all the negative campaigning."

   The time for this remark is generally shortly after somebody says something negative about a politician that also happens to be true.

   It's unfortunate that our broadcast journalists do such a poor job of separating facts from distortions and relevant information from trivia. If they did a better job, there wouldn't necessarily be less negativity in our campaigns, but at least we could be more confident that the negative news we heard would be both true and relevant, rather than false and trivial. That's negative news that I can handle.

   It is because the broadcast media's filter is flimsy or non-functional that I choose to rely on print journalists like Ari Berman rather than watch TV news, which Berman aptly describes as "virtually unwatchable." I am grateful that Berman does some of the filtering that TV journalists should do. I hope he is decently paid for his trouble.

   Posted by JakobFabian at 10/13/2008 @ 7:07pm

5. Jackasses like Rick Davis make their living by being sell-outs to the highest bidder. He's nothing more than a glorified used car salesman. So far, the republican brand is to lie out their ass, roll the dice and see if the moronic public buys into the B.S. We have for the last eight years. Any takers for another four?!

   Madlib, Obama may not be the perfect candidate, but if you can't see that he is light years better for this country than McCain, you need to have your head examined.

   Obama may be part of the system and plays within the system, but he hasn't been a part of the system like McCain for decades.

   With Obama, there's at least a chance that he'll make decisions in the right direction. With McCain, we're guaranteed a friggin disaster. McIdiot approves of tax cuts for the wealthiest while our country runs the border of economic collapse. With McCain's position, it's pretty damned obvious who's corner he's in.

   Posted by Wolfgang1 at 10/14/2008 @ 10:17am