John McCain has repeatedly been forced to dump campaign advisers exposed as lobbyists for fascist-like regimes and transnational corporations.
Six of his highest ranking operatives were recently forced out including Doug Goodyear — McCain’s choice to manage the Republican convention in Minneapolis — and his partner Doug Davenport. They had served as lobbyists for the brutal military junta in Burma. Eric Burgeson, McCain’s energy and environmental adviser, left due to his close ties to the White House and his lobbying for oil and gas companies. Former Texas Rep. Tom Loeffler, McCain’s national finance co-chair, resigned over disclosures that Saudi Arabia paid him $15 million. Rob Allyn, head of Dallas-based Allyn & Company, resigned after disclosure that he was paid $700,000 by the right-wing government of Mexico to clean up its image. He also lobbied for a “guest worker” program that would bring Mexican workers into the U.S. at sub-minimum wages with no benefits.
Craig Shirley was forced to leave the McCain campaign when his ties to a “Swift Boat”-type web site was exposed which targeted Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama with vicious sexist and racist smear attacks.
McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, has announced that campaign personnel must either resign or sever their ties to lobbying firms. Davis himself is on leave from one of Washington’s wealthiest, best-connected lobby firms. McCain’s closest adviser, Charlie Black, served as a lobbyist for Mobuto Sese Seko of the Congo, Jonas Savimbi of Angola and Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, all brutal, corrupt right-wing figures. A more recent client was Ahmed Chalabi, whose lies, featured on the front page of The New York Times, helped drag the U.S. into the Iraq war.
If the corporate lobbyists who run McCain’s campaign succeed in installing him in the White House, we face another eight years of the overflowing sewer that engulfed the Bush-Cheney White House. McCain’s defeat will strike a blow against that system of legalized thievery.
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