McCain's Role in Plane Pact Spotlights Ties to Lobbyists

[jackson_dem]

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To show that he's a crusader against wasteful spending and congressional corruption, Sen. John McCain repeatedly brags about his leading role in stopping a scandal-plagued air tanker contract between the Air Force and Boeing in 2004.

Four years later, a $35 billion contract has been awarded to Europe's Airbus consortium to build the latest generation of tanker planes. The decision has sparked anger from Boeing's congressional supporters and critics of outsourcing. It has also focused attention on McCain's reliance on lobbyists in his campaign for president because his finance chairman and several other top advisers lobbied for Airbus last year when it was in fierce competition with Boeing for the Air Force contract.

McCain has spoken out for years against the influence of special interests in Washington, but his campaign includes a number of prominent Washington lobbyists, including campaign manager Rick Davis, who founded a lobbying firm, and top political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., chief executive of a well-known Washington firm. Neither of them lobbied for Airbus.

McCain finance chairman Thomas G. Loeffler and Susan E. Nelson, who left Loeffler's lobbying firm to be McCain's finance director, both began lobbying for Airbus's parent company in 2007, Senate records show. William L. Ball III, a former secretary of the Navy and frequent McCain surrogate on the trail, also lobbied for Airbus, as did John Green, who recently took a leave from Ogilvy Public Relations to serve as McCain's legislative liaison.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/11/AR2008031103134.html?hpid=topnews