About John McCain

This is long, but any American thinking about voting for John McCain for OUR president should read every word of this.


Audio: During the Savings and Loan crisis, John McCain was caught red-handed pressuring regulators to go easy on his friend Charles Keating.



"Four senators, including McCain, met with Edwin Gray, the chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board in Washington that April in 1987. When Gray returned from the meeting, he told Black he was 'very upset' that the senators were trying to pressure him, according to Black's Senate testimony."



Source: The Boston Globe, February 28, 2008.



"But at both meetings, first with Gray and then with thrift regulators flown in from San Francisco, McCain looked on as DeConcini pushed the regulators to give Lincoln a dispensation on a board regulation that barred further risky investments - a ban that Lincoln had already exceeded by $600 million. Two years later, Gray told a House committee that the meetings were an attempt to 'subvert' the regulatory process."



Source: The Boston Globe, February 29, 2000



"McCain, Glenn, Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) and Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) met April 2 in DeConcini's office to discuss Lincoln's troubles with Edwin J. Gray, then-chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. Those four were joined by Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.) in a meeting a week later with San Francisco-based regulators, also to discuss Lincoln's problems. Gray and two of the San Francisco regulators testified that they felt improperly pressured by the senators to withdraw an investment regulation that Lincoln opposed."



Source: The Washington Post, January 5, 1991.



Audio: Keating had raised $112,000 dollars for McCain's campaigns.



"By 1987, McCain had received about $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and his associates."



Source: The Arizona Republic, March 1, 2007.



"McCain, 54, and Keating met at a Navy League dinner in 1981 where McCain says Keating related his World War II pilot experiences and offered to help him if he ran for office. That help became $ 112,000 of Keating-linked campaign contributions."



Source: USA Today, January 4, 1991



"McCain, the lone Republican among the Keating Five, accepted $110,000 in campaign money from Keating and his associates, and accepted free trips for himself and his family to Keating's resort in the Bahamas."



Source: Chicago Tribune, November 16, 1990



Audio: .and paid for McCain's trips to the Bahamas.



"McCain met Keating in 1982, during McCain's successful run for Congress, and soon began accepting offers from Keating to fly McCain's family on a corporate plane to Keating's house in the Bahamas. McCain did not pay for most of the trips until years later, when the matter became public."



Source: The Boston Globe, February 28, 2008.



"According to testimony before the Senate Ethics Committee, which has been hearing the cases of the Keating Five senators, McCain (R-Ariz.) and his family took the trips from 1983 through 1986. But they did not pay for the trips until 1989, by which time the Keating cases were beginning to come to light."



Source: The Chicago Tribune, January 5, 1991.



"Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz). came under heavy questioning Friday before the Senate Ethics Committee about a three-year delay in repaying $13,000 in travel costs to the firm controlled by savings and loan kingpin Charles H. Keating Jr."



Source: Los Angeles Times, January 5, 1991.



Audio: 20 years later, the lobbying firm owned by John McCain's campaign manager took hidden payments from Freddie Mac.



"One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain's campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.



"The disclosure undercuts a remark by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.



"Mr. Davis's firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the two people said."



Source: The New York Times, September 23, 2008.



"The sniping between the two campaigns followed reports this week in the New York Times and Newsweek that Davis Manafort, a public affairs firm owned by Davis, was paid $15,000 a month from 2005 through last month under a retainer he had arranged with officials at Freddie Mac."



Source: Los Angeles Times, September 25, 2008



"Pay a lobbying firm $15,000 a month for several years to do no lobbying. Pay a former campaign aide to John McCain $30,000 a month for five years following the senator's failed bid in 2000 for the presidency. At any other time, it would be business as usual in Washington. Not today. The money came from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two failed housing giants that are a huge part of the financial crisis imperiling the economy. And the recipient of most of the funds is McCain's current campaign manager, Rick Davis."



Source: Newsday, September 25, 2008



Audio: Tell John McCain: In order to reform Wall Street, we need real campaign reform in Washington.



In February, Public Campaign Action Fund released a comprehensive report on Sen. McCain's multiple positions for and against comprehensive campaign finance reform, including public financing.



STATEMENTS



1988: "I think that objective observers of the political scene would suggest that a number of candidates for president of the United States [who have used public financing] have very little, if any, chance of succeeding to the presidency."



Source: McCain in 1988 debate over campaign finance reform bill, the Senatorial Election Campaign Act (S. 2), as quoted in Investor's Business Daily, September 21, 1999. McCain voted NO on the bill.



1990: "Mr. President, I do not think we are ever going to have a level playing field for challengers unless we start out, both challenger and incumbent, with the same amount of funds; recognizing that incumbents have an enormous advantage in fundraising as it is. But no challenger in his or her right mind will challenge someone with many millions of dollars in the bank that they can use for a campaign."



Source: Senate speech, July 31, 1990. McCain voted YES on the bill.



1999: "I don't believe in public financing because I don't think my tax dollars should be used to fund a person's campaign that I philosophically disagree with."



Source: ABC, Nightline, December 16, 1999



2002: "Absolutely."



Source: McCain's answer to journalist Bill Moyers when asked if Arizona's public financing law was a model for the nation, NOW with Bill Moyers, December 13, 2002.



2006: "No."



Source: McCain's response to a reporter when "asked if he'd back the measure" for public financing of Senate races, as reported by Paul Kane, "McCain Shuffles Deck," Roll Call, July 28, 2005.



2007: "No, I don't think that's what we want to do."



Source: McCain responding to a question from Jacob Soberoff of the pro-democracy group Why Tuesday regarding whether Arizona's system public financing is a model for federal elections, December 13, 2007.



VOTES, LEGISLATION



1990: McCain voted for partial public financing of Senate races (S. 137)



1992: McCain voted for partial public financing of Senate races (S. 3)



1995: McCain voted to eliminate public financing for presidential races (S. Con. Res. 13)



2001: McCain voted against an amendment to BCRA that would have allowed states to provide public financing for federal races (Wellstone Amendment, S. 27)



2001: McCain voted against an amendment to BCRA that would have provided public financing for Senate races (Kerry Amendment, S. 27)



2001: McCain voted against an amendment to BCRA that would have provided public financing for Senate races (Harkin Amendment, S. 27)



2003: McCain sponsors a bill to fix the presidential public financing system (S. 1913)



2006: McCain refuses to sponsor same bill with Sen. Feingold (S. 3740)



2007: McCain refuses to sponsor same bill with Sen. Feingold (S. 436, S. 2412)



2007: McCain refuses to cosponsor Fair Elections Now Act (S. 1285)


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