John McCain's Lobbyists (the list)

Listening to the McCain campaign talk about lobbyists over the last few days I was reminded of that scene from Casablanca between Rick and Captain Renault. Renault expresses faux outrage over gambling.

Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
[aloud]
Captain Renault: Everybody out at once!

The McCain campaign's response to their recent McLobbyist scandals is just as fake.

To date, John McCain has 118 lobbyists either working or raising money for him. So far, he's fired only three of them:

Eric Robert Burgeson

Douglas B. Davenport

Thomas Loeffler

This is hardly even a slap on the wrist.

The remaining 115 lobbyists make millions working for special interests in Washington. They represent all kinds of industries like health insurance companies, Big Pharma, defense contractors, and Telecom. They represent foreign regimes like Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Burma. And they hold positions at the highest levels of the McCain campaign.

John McCain says he represents the American people, but the men and women Senator McCain has chosen to run his campaign have worked for years for special interests.

Here is the full list of the lobbyists working or raising money for John McCain:

Robert Aiken

Grant Aldonas

Philmore B. Anderson

Rebecca "Becky" Anderson

Stanton Anderson

Susan Auther Andres

Robert Asher

William J. Bailey III

William Ball III

David Beightol

Rhonda A. Bentz

Wayne Berman

Steve Betts

Charlie Black

Judy Black

Kirk Blalock

Carlos Bonilla

Christine Burgeson

Kerry Cammack

Kirsten Ardleigh Chadwick

Rob Chamberlin

Susan Charlton

John Clerici

Josephine "Jo" Cooper

James Courter

Bryan Cunningham

Alfonse D'Amato

Ashley Davis

Kurt Davis

Rick Davis

Mimi Dawson

John Diamond

Frank Donatelli

Melissa "Missy" Edwards

Kevin Fay

Christian Ferry

Chris Fidler

Thomas Jr. Fiorentino

Sally Furman

Samuel K. Geduldig

Ben Ginsberg

David Girard-di Carlo

Michael Glassner

Juleanna R. Glover Weiss

Phil Gramm

John Green

Janet M. Grissom

Wes Gullett

Kristen Gullott

Kent Hance

Robert Harding

Vicki Hart

Robert van Laer Hartwell

John D. Heubusch

Deborah Hohlt

Richard Hohlt

Gaylord T. Jr. Hughey

Peter Huntsman

Aleix Jarvis

Greg Jenner

Christine Jones

Nancy Johnson

Mary Kate Johnson

Ned Johnson

Charles N. Kahn III

Mike Kennedy

William Kilberg

Steve Kuykendall

William "Bill" Lesher

Jack Lichtenstein

Gail MacKinnon

Peter Madigan

Mary Mann

Paul Martino

Mary McAuliffe

John McGovern

Mike McKay

Timothy McKone

Alison H. McSlarrow

Kyle E. McSlarrow

Michael E. Meece

David A Metzner

Susan Molinari

John Munger

Ken Nahigian

Susan Nelson

Jack Oliver

Steve Perry

Nancy Mitchell Pfotenhauer

Steve Phillips

Elise Pickering

James L. Pitts

Timothy Powers

Anthony Principi

Michael Racy

Sloan W. Rappoport

James Rill

Steve Roman

Matt Salmon

Joseph Samora

Randy Scheunemann

Katie Stahl

Milly Stanges

Aquiles Suarez

Fife Symington

Jeri Thompson

Dirk W. Van Dongen

David Vennett

Raymond T. Jr. Wagner

Jeffrey Weiss

Richard "Dick" Wiley

Tony Williams

James Woolsey

Joseph Wright

Fred Zeidman

You can take a look at the people they worked for and the positions they hold within the McCain campaign over at McCainSource.com.

Does John McCain actually expect us to believe that of the 115 lobbyists left, none of them will come back to the White House looking for favors if he gets elected?

Follow Tom Matzzie on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Matzzie

Comments

[betz55]

How many of them are from AIPAC ? Our foreign policy is still owned by Israel.

[econdr]

that'll change if the republicans are successful in driving a wedge between the democrats and israel...

[genoasail]

McCain isn't actually running a campaign, so much as a not-very-w­ell-disgui­sed lobbying group.

McCain/Washington Lobbyists for President 2008

Our slogan is "Business As Usual"

[RadicalConservative]

Why don't you post the list of lobbyists taht Obama has working for him? Go ahead, try and tell us that he doesn't have any working for him.

[DAVESEAN]

Neocon...w­hat u doing on this blog......­john mccain is only gonna be president of united lobbyist of America...­...u better start moving to Canada or Get use to the phrase PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

[KBAR]

Get use to the phrase PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

Don't you really mean CHAIRMAN BARRY OBAMA, Comrade?

[tschlak]

Registered agents for foreign (some Muslim, if you want to go there) governments are key advisors for a major party presidential candidate. How is this he NOT dumped already by his party??

[anfractuous]

It really is much more efficient this way; why make these people endlessly wine and dine a bunch of bloated congressmen to achieve their goals, when they could be working right out of the Whitehouse? Bush only hinted at what was possible in this regard.

[politicojunkie]

This is why Karl Rove comes up with his ficticious maps that show Hillary beating McCain in the general. Repugs do not want to run against Obama because they know he can and will strike back, whereas Hillary has as much or more baggage than McCain.

[KarlRoves3rdchin]

Tom,

Thank you very much for printing this list. I've been doing research and was amazed at how many lobbyists McCain staffs - yet, the MSM still calls him a 'maverick' and that he 'fights' against lobbyists' influence. Guess McCain only fights the influence when it's not his own lobbyists!!

What a crooked liar. Haven't we had enough of this for the last several years??!!

[anfractuous]

Hey c'mon! The definition of "maverick" says nothing about lobbyists one way or the other.

[PioneerKing]

McCain has been handing out favors to the clients of these lobbyists for years.

[RadicalConservative]

Right --- and nobody believes that the lobbyists that got Barack Obama into his Senate office will want favors, do they?

[indypete]

How come the rightwingers can't defend without whining, "Well he does it too!" What's next? "My dad can whup your dad?"

[macaframa]

i'll take 3-5 lobbyists over 115 any day

[tel8034]

If McCain is vetting his team to weed out the lobbyists, then he needs to add his own name to that list.

I hear bells tolling re the Keating 5 ......... So the list grows from 115 to 116 when you include McCain.

Does this now mean he himself has to drop out of the race? ..........­. WHAT A TANGLED WEB McCAIN HAS NOW SPUN FOR HIMSELF.

[landmine]

Hmmmm.
It seems that we are getting daily revelations of some pretty big McCain issues. I wonder how much longer he'll be able to maintain his cool?

[Chillinout]

He only needs to get rid of 113 more to keep his promise of not using lobbyists so he isn't beholden to special interests. If he were somehow to win the WH he would owe something to a hell of a lot of people. Government by the lobbyists, for the lobbyists.

[Grannysue]

Lobbyist, where all the GOP has beens go to graze!

[Relax08]

How about Joseph Samora. He has extensive ties to CASE NEW HOLLAND INC. EXCELLENCE IN GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE a Political Action Committee [THAT's a PAC guys] to whom he has made numerous contributions.

Let's see how this works. McCain hires lobbyist to run his campaign. They give money to the PAC's who just say whatever is on their minds and there is no coordination between the PAC and the McCain Campaign. Right and if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.
BOY I CALL THAT CLEVER CAMPAIGN REFORM!

The Straight Talk Express should be called the Karl Rove School of Dirty Corrupt Politics.

[smartex]

McCain had better stop asking his team of lobyists to declear conflict of interest before his own lobying prowess makes it to the fore front. Maybe he should just give up the campaign to avoid all these embarrassment.

[Relax08]

Randy Scheunemann is a lobbyist for McCain. This is classic, while this guy may or may not have ties to any foreign dictatorships, his big claim to fame is that he was an advisor to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on on Iraq. [Source: Wikipedia]

I thought McCain thought Rumsfeld was a bad Secretary of Defense and was one of those responsible for the screw up there? I guess he is going to use Scheunemann to plan a "SHOCK AND AWE" campgain in Iran.

McCain, Bush, Chency, Rumsfeld, etc. they are all in this together and to elect McCain is to bring the whole bunch of Neocons to the White House with another chance to really really really screw up the world again!