If the price is right, you've got a friend in John McCain
by BarbinMD
Sun May 11, 2008 at 03:09:28 PM PDT
I've never done any favors for anybody — lobbyist or special interest group — that's a clear, 24-year record. - John McCain
Along with his claims of being a straight talker and a maverick, it is nothing less than laughable for John McCain to say that he's never done favors for anybody, and there's a clear record that proves it. From the time he rode into politics on the back of his wife's family fortune, until he gathered a team of lobbyists to run his 2008 presidential campaign, John McCain has been in the pocket of special interest groups.
In recent weeks both the New York Times and the Washington Post have featured articles that explore how McCain, the self-described foe of lobbyists and special interest groups, has used his influence to help broker land deals that benefited big-money contributors.
From the New York Times we learned that Donald Diamond, known as the Arizona version of "The Donald," a McCain Innovator who has raised more than $250,000 for the campaign, made a $20 million profit on a land deal that was made with the help of McCain's senate staff. And McCain has done more than just open doors for Diamond. Over the years he has either sponsored or co-sponsored bills that authorized federal land swaps that were to the advantage of Diamond, one where the government paid him $23 million for land appraised at $5 million. And yet, according to a McCain spokeswoman, he "had done nothing for Mr. Diamond that he would not do for any other Arizona citizen.'' Yes, just another average Joe who happened to donate over $55,000 to McCain campaigns, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for his presidential bid, vacationed with him in the Bahamas and attended World Series games together...just another Arizona citizen. And Mr. Diamond's take on the article?
I think that is what Congress people are supposed to do for constituents. When you have a big, significant businessman like myself, why wouldn't you want to help move things along? What else would they do? They waste so much time with legislation.
And from the Washington Post, another story of a McCain brokered land swap that will benefit one of his campaign fundraisers, helped along by the lobbying efforts of former McCain staffers and a major McCain donor. In 2005, McCain pushed through legislation that would allow Arizona rancher Fred Ruskin to "trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development," and once the legislation was passed, Ruskin turned over the development of the land to Steven Betts of SunCor Developments, a McCain Trailblazer. Naturally, "there is 'absolutely no' connection between his contributions to McCain's presidential bids and the deal involving" Ruskin. It's just another coincidence in a long line of coincidences where John McCain's actions happen to benefit the people who finance his campaigns.
In 1994, Del Webb Corportion, a company that had donated more than $56,000 to McCain campaigns, were attempting to arrange a trade for land in the Red Rock National Conservation Area. When a U.S. House bill was passed that would have expanded the area to include the land Del Webb wanted, a lobbyist for Del Webb contacted McCain and he placed a hold on the bill, tabling it indefinitely. And after the lobbyist cut a deal with a delegation of Nevada congressmen to approve the trade, McCain removed his hold and the bill was passed in the Senate. It should be noted that Del Webb eventually paid the government $10,900 per acre for 4,000 acres...it had been appraised at $36,000 an acre.
Of course they all haven't been winners. In 1998, under the guise of protecting the environment, McCain tried to put together a land deal to protect a wilderness area part-owned (70%) by Carl Lindner, that would have given him several thousand acres of the Tonto National Forest near Scottsdale, Arizona, in exchange for his land. The deal eventually fell through, but many thought it was an odd attempt by McCain to burnish his less than stellar environmental record by proposing a deal that was opposed by nearly every environmental group in Arizona, not to mention the U.S. Forest Service and the Arizona Game and Fish Commission. But it certainly would have been a boon to Carl Lindner, a man who not only donated 300,000 dollars to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but who, as the chairman and chief executive of American Financial Group, at one time employed Charles Keating as corporate counsel and executive vice president. McCain's incestuous roots seem to be as connected as those of an aspen. And speaking of Charles Keating...
While the Keating Five scandal that earned John McCain a slap on the wrist from the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising "poor judgement," brings to mind McCain's part in delaying the government's seizure of the Lincoln Savings and Loan at the behest campaign contributor and personal friend, Charles Keating, a delay that eventually cost U.S. taxpayers $2.6 billion, what's rarely mentioned is his wife and father-in-law's involvement with Keating in a...you guessed it...land deal. After McCain's role in the Keating Five scandal was revealed, McCain paid back $13,433 for flights he and his family had taken on Keating's private jet, and he eventually donated $112,000 (the amount he had received from Keating) to the U.S. treasury, but his wife and father-in-law, who had invested $359,000 in a Keating-owned strip mall held onto their investment, later selling it for $15 million.
The moral of this story seems to be, if you are interested in real estate, John McCain is the man to know. Or, for that matter, if you need an advocate for beer distributorships, telephone carriers, railroads or mining companies. If you are a patron, then you've got a friend in John McCain. Even as he insists that:
I have carefully avoided situations that might even tangentially be construed as a less than proper use of my office.
Not carefully enough.
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