“”Obviously, the gulf between my opponent’s rhetoric and the reality is so great it exceeds the geographic dimensions of our own Grand Canyon,” Hayworth says. “It’s more than a credibility gap, it’s a credibility canyon.… If he was really concerned about [the influence of political contributions], he certainly seems to have gotten over it very quickly.””
INDEED!
McCain is steeped in money from special interests to push legislation,usually in committees that he heads. His campaign ‘reform’ was really more about covering his big donors and his own corruption.
We know about the Indian money he exempted from his CFR, so they could give him ALL the money he wanted while being head of the Indian senate affairs committee.
Indians, Lobbyists and Arizona Politics...OH MY!’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2440173/posts
Here is some on other donations for legislation.
McCain pressed FCC in case involving major contributor
[snips - read it all]
Days before Senator John McCain joined hands with Senator Bill Bradley last month to decry the noxious influence of special interest campaign donors, McCain pressured the Federal Communications Commission to vote on an issue that cleared the way for a major contributor to his presidential campaign to buy a Pittsburgh television station.
Speaking generally, however, McCain said, ‘’People give money to buy access. We’re all tainted by this system.’’ From time to time, he said, he has agreed to meet with major donors. ‘’They have access, and therefore they have influence. It corrupts the system. And I’m a victim of it too,’’ said McCain, who was ensnared but later cleared in the so-called Keating Five scandal nearly a decade ago. He was one of five senators who interceded with federal banking regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, whose name became synonymous with the savings and loan scandal that cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
McCain’s insistent urging that the FCC vote on the Pittsburgh issue had the effect - if not the intent - of benefiting Paxson, a West Palm Beach, Fla., network of 73 family-oriented stations and the nation’s largest owner of independent television stations. Through the end of September, Paxson’s top officers and their family members - and even the personal assistant to the wife of the company’s founder, Lowell W. Paxson - contributed $12,000 to McCain. In 1998, Paxson officials gave $9,000 to McCain.
And in July, as Paxson lobbyists were asking members of Congress to exert pressure on the FCC, 13 members of Paxson’s law firm, Dow, Lohnes & Albertson, contributed more than $8,000 to McCain on a single day, according to campaign finance records.
Sometime between McCain’s first letter on Nov. 17 and his more insistent letter on Dec. 10, Paxson made its four-engine jet available to ferry McCain and his entourage from New Hampshire to Washington on Dec. 3, a day after McCain declared in a New Hampshire appearance:
Though McCain’s committee has oversight of the FCC, there is no evidence that his May criticism affected the FCC’s decision to allow the mammoth SBC merger. Two weeks later, however, McCain filed legislation to strip the agency of its say in telecommunications mergers.
But on the Pittsburgh issue, officials familiar with the decision said McCain’s involvement was more problematic.