McCain’s Lobbyist Advisers

April 14, 2008

The Facts

Charlie Black and Thomas Loeffler are senior advisors for John McCain. They are also very successful lobbyist and still very involved in lobbying. Each of them has made millions of dollars lobbying for foreign governments.

My View

I won’t say that I am watching the presidential campaign closer than anyone; in fact, there are many who are watching it closer. But I do pay a lot of attention to the campaign, and a lot more attention to what the news media is talking about. In this case, it is more of what the news media is not talking about. And what they are not talking about is McCain’s top advisors being foreign lobbyist. This fact has been “mentioned” a couple of times, and that is about it. Nothing like they did with Hillary Clinton’s advisor, Mark Penn, who is also a lobbyist for foreign governments.

The bigger problem here is that our candidates are using lobbyist as advisors, period. It doesn’t matter whether they are foreign lobbyist or domestic lobbyist, it is a blatantly conflict of interest. On the other hand, is it a conflict of interest? A conflict of interest is described as “a situation in which someone in a position of trust, such as a lawyer, insurance adjuster, a politician, executive or director of a corporation or a medical research scientist or physician, has competing professional or personal interests”. And our elected official’s professional and personal interest is with the wealthy and powerful, not the ordinary citizen; and it does say “someone in a position of trust“. When was the last time a politician was trustworthy? So I guess we shouldn’t be surprised or disappointed in McCain.

Read The Washington Times article about McCain’s advisers.