Free Republic

Few advisers in John McCain's inner circle inspire more loyalty from him than campaign manager Rick Davis. McCain and his wife, Cindy, credit the shrewd, and sometimes volatile, Republican insider with rescuing the campaign last year when it was out of money and on the verge of collapse. As a result, McCain has always defended him—even when faced with tough questions about the foreign lobbying clients of Davis's high-powered consulting firm. "Rick is a friend, and I trust him," McCain told NEWSWEEK last year. Last week, though, McCain's trust in Davis was tested again amid disclosures that Freddie Mac, the...

Rick Davis, the manager of Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign, is a typical Washington insider in many ways, having long worked as both a lobbyist and a political operative along the intersection of politics, policy and money. Now Mr. Davis is overseeing new lobbyist-related guidelines that the campaign has issued in an effort to safeguard Mr. McCain’s reputation as an opponent of special interests. The plan, among other things, bars “registered” lobbyists, those who must file disclosure reports listing their clients, from working on the campaign. Mr. Davis, who last worked as a registered lobbyist in 2005 and took a...

Disturbed by troubling connections and unflattering publicity, John McCain has just purged several prominent Washington lobbyists from his presidential campaign. Surely his intentions are laudable, but if Sen. McCain is consistent in ridding his campaign of such compromised people, he will find himself riding lonesome on the Straight Talk Express. That's because nearly all of his advisers, fundraisers and top staffers have worked on K Street, starting with his campaign manager, Rick Davis, and his senior adviser and spokesman, Charles Black. From the beginning, the McCain team has been thoroughly infested with representatives of corporate special interests, from the campaign's...

Sen. John McCain has asserted his opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin a number of times, going so far as joining with Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., in 2005 to introduce legislation calling on President Bush to suspend Russian's membership in the Group of Eight. That opposition, however, is being called into question by links that have been established in various reports between McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, and Ukrainian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who is suspected of having ties to organized Russian crime. Davis even arranged for McCain to meet Deripaska at a time when Davis' lobbying firm was working under...

CT Resources Recovery Authority Feeling Heat Again Giveaway Of Trucks Slammed By Unions March 26, 2002 By JON LENDER, Courant Staff Writer The state's trash authority, already under fire for losing $220 million in a failed deal with Enron Corp., has a new issue to grapple with: Last year, the authority gave about 20 tractor-trailers - at no charge - to a private company controlled by the Plainville-area Manafort family.Members of the Manafort family and employees of its businesses have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Gov. John G. Rowland's campaigns this year and in the past, and officials...