Putting McCain to the Ethics Test
By Michael Scherer
Time
The U.S. senate is a lousy launching pad for sainthood, a place of compromise and backslaps, of hidden doors that lead to gilded rooms where the real work gets done. To succeed is to succumb, often to the courtship of big-ticket donors.
And yet for more than a decade,John McCain has claimed to truck with angels. He condemns his colleagues who earmark bridges or bike trails, often at the request of contributors. When a powerful trade group is arrayed against him, he bellows, "The fix is in." He exploded with contempt for the corrupting ways of Washington at one hearing in 1999. "This is Congress," McCain declared, "where telecommunications-industry lobbying is no-holds-barred."
Such displays of outrage have fueled the GOP nominee's political success, earning him a reputation as a reformer with higher nationwide favorability ratings than either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. It's because of that reputation, which particularly appeals to independent voters, that Democrats have started targeting McCain's reformer cred.
In recent weeks Democratic leader Howard Dean has called McCain a "situation ethicist" who "runs on his integrity, but he doesn't seem to have any." Obama has alleged that McCain puts lobbyists "in charge of his campaign," even though the Democratic candidates are also advised by current and former influence brokers. The Democratic National Committee regularly blasts out statements tagging McCain with ominous phrases like special-interest cronyism.
(Continued here.)
Time
The U.S. senate is a lousy launching pad for sainthood, a place of compromise and backslaps, of hidden doors that lead to gilded rooms where the real work gets done. To succeed is to succumb, often to the courtship of big-ticket donors.
And yet for more than a decade,John McCain has claimed to truck with angels. He condemns his colleagues who earmark bridges or bike trails, often at the request of contributors. When a powerful trade group is arrayed against him, he bellows, "The fix is in." He exploded with contempt for the corrupting ways of Washington at one hearing in 1999. "This is Congress," McCain declared, "where telecommunications-industry lobbying is no-holds-barred."
Such displays of outrage have fueled the GOP nominee's political success, earning him a reputation as a reformer with higher nationwide favorability ratings than either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. It's because of that reputation, which particularly appeals to independent voters, that Democrats have started targeting McCain's reformer cred.
In recent weeks Democratic leader Howard Dean has called McCain a "situation ethicist" who "runs on his integrity, but he doesn't seem to have any." Obama has alleged that McCain puts lobbyists "in charge of his campaign," even though the Democratic candidates are also advised by current and former influence brokers. The Democratic National Committee regularly blasts out statements tagging McCain with ominous phrases like special-interest cronyism.
(Continued here.)
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