As pointed out in part 2 of this series, it has been discovered recently that McCain’s economic advisor, Phil Gramm, was employed UBS, a Swiss bank that Gramm was lobbying for as it relates to the mortgage industry. What’s troubling is that Gramm helped the mortgage industry by helping to deregulate the banking industry and help perpetuate the problems we now see in the mortgage industry.
And what was McCain’s response to this?
“Senator Gramm has one of the most honorable records of anyone who has served in the United States Senate and, of course, he’s never lobbied me.”
I think McCain misses the point. The problem isn’t that Gramm has lobbied for McCain, it’s the fact that he was a lobbyest period. By McCain’s own campaign policies, Gramm should not be a member of his campaign. He goes against the very things McCain keeps preaching about…and he’s providing economic policy advise? Tell me there isn’t a contradiction here.
Recently, Keith Olbermann pointed out more about the Gramm scandal…and it gets worse. I’ll let Keith take the conn:
What blows my mind is that these facts are pointed out and yet so many Republicans keep throwing it back and saying,”You’re wrong!” Look, I’m an Obama supporter, but even I will admit when Obama is wrong or has serious problems with his policies. Nobody is perfect. Until both Republicans and Democrats realize that, until they start looking at the bigger picture, nothing is going to get done.
Here’s $100 billion right here for you, George. Two years in a row, the last two years, the president of the United States has signed into law two big spending, pork barrel-laden bills with $35 billion (in earmarks). In the years before that, $65 billion. You do away with those, there’s $100 billion right before you look at any agency.
This is yet another example of what I call “band-aid” politics. McCain glazes over the problem but doesn’t directly address it. The problem is that McCain is stretching the facts beyond imagination, isn’t basing it on fact, and isn’t addressing the larger issues related to government spending. The government is hemorrhaging millions of dollars a month on Iraq and McCain seems to think that we can “magically” continue to fund it by simply eliminating earmarks. Great if you know how much is truly wasted on earmarks. Even better if you can truly get rid of them. But to say that this is McCain’s plan for a continued war in Iraq is just pure fantasy.
McCain really doesn’t have much of an economic policy. He seems to emphasize the war in Iraq above anything else. And now we know why. Recently it was revealed that McCain’s campaign co-chairman, Phil Gramm, was a lobbyist for UBS. Why is this such a big deal? Because UBS is a Swiss bank that is directly involved with the current mortgage crisis that threatens to cause millions of home owners to go into foreclosure. What is troubling about this is that McCain is receiving advise on his policy regarding the mortgage crisis from someone who lobbied for the mortgage industry. Not good.
It is pretty clear after the results of the Democratic elections in Kentucky and Oregon that Barack Obama will be the Democratic candidate. Thus, it is no longer necessary to talk about why Hillary Clinton should not be President since she’ll clearly no longer be in the race. Now it is time to focus my attention on the Republican candidate, one that is probably as prolific as Clinton when it comes to discrepancies in a campaign. This is the first of what will likely be many posts about why I think John McCain should not be President of the United States.
I recently read that McCain’s finance co-chairman, former Texas Rep. Thomas G. Loeffler, had stepped down. What concerns me about this is the fact that Loeffler runs a lobbying firm called The Loeffler Group, a firm that has lobbied for other foreign interests and foreign governments and, according to Newsweek, was paid $15 million by Saudi Arabia.
McCain recently put a policy in place that prohibits any member of his campaign staff from being a registered lobbyist or foreign agent. With this policy, others have left his campaign including advisers Doug Goodyear and Doug Davenport, both of which worked for DCI Group, a consulting firm hired to improve the image of Myanmar’s military junta. McCain also fired energy policy adviser Eric Burgeson, who represents energy companies as a lobbyist.
If this is McCain’s idea of action against lobbyists then it’s too little too late. Even McCain’s own website had this to say about lobbyists:
As John McCain has said, “Americans believe that political representation is measured on a sliding scale. The more you give the more effectively you can petition your government.” It is no coincidence that the most influential lobbyists with the greatest access in the nation’s Capitol are also the most prolific political fundraisers, and that incumbents attract money in far greater volumes than most challengers.
You know, for a guy who claims to be “Ready From Day One“, he sure as hell didn’t make sure that he wasn’t hiring ex-lobbyist from day one of his campaign.
But that wasn’t even the most scariest story of the week. The most scariest is one that my wife forwarded to me from the Huffington Post, one in which McCain gets his fact wrong about Iran:
It’s scary because here’s a guy who has been through the worst of the worst when it comes to war, is twice my age, and doesn’t know the difference between Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah. What’s worse, he even argues about it. Even I know who the hell the Ayatollah is. I learned that when I was a kid back in 1981 when the Iran hostage crisis took place. It’s pretty clear that Ahmadinejad is not the Ayatollah. It’s insulting because, out of all people in the United States, it’s the President who needs to know this stuff the most. Pretty crazy when even a 10 year-old kid knows more than John McCain about Iran’s leaders.
