![\"McCain](\"\/Pix\/Charts\/lobbyists-bundlers.jpg\")
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The past few weeks has brought repeated announcements from the campaign of pseudo-maverick John McCain regarding the dismissal of staff members due to their lobbying activities. It’s not enough that McCain raises more money with the help of lobbyists than any other presidential candidate…<\/p>\n
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Nope, McCain also employs so many lobbyists that there seems to be a new one falling from the campaign tree every week. Amongst those having taken their leave so far are Doug Goodyear, Doug Davenport, Eric Burgeson, and Craig Shirley. The latest casualty<\/a> is the campaign’s national finance co-chairman, Thomas Loeffler. Hanging low on the branch are super-lobbyists Charlie Black and campaign manager Rick Davis. Media Matters has compiled a superb list of even more tainted McCain staffers<\/a>.<\/p>\n And speaking of McCain staffers with ties to lobbying, the announcement of Loeffler’s departure was made by Tucker Bounds, McCain’s deputy communications director. Bounds recently left<\/a> his position with the American Insurance Association<\/a> to join McCain’s campaign. The AIA is the “leading property-casualty insurance trade organization, representing 350 insurers that write more than $123 billion in premiums each year.”<\/em><\/p>\n This relationship raises an interesting question: Since Bounds, the McCain spokesperson, is himself bound to a major lobbying group, will he be called upon to announce his own dismissal?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The past few weeks has brought repeated announcements from the campaign of pseudo-maverick John McCain regarding the dismissal of staff members due to their lobbying activities. It’s not enough that McCain raises more money with the help of lobbyists than any other presidential candidate… Nope, McCain also employs so many lobbyists that there seems to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[103,296],"class_list":["post-916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-john-mccain","tag-tucker-bounds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-eM","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":812,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=812","url_meta":{"origin":916,"position":0},"title":"The Myth Of Maverick McCain","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/27\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"John McCain's image, as propounded by his spinners (aka: the Media) is that of a maverick who shuns political opportunists and slaps the hands of greedy, special interest self-promoters. It's an image that gets projected repeatedly by pundits and lazy journalists whose writing seems to be on auto-pilot. They reason\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":934,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=934","url_meta":{"origin":916,"position":1},"title":"John McCain’s Bottomless Pit Of Lobbyists","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/31\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It hardly seems that a day goes by without a new revelation of lobbyists in John McCain's campaign. Last week I reported that, so far this year, five tainted staffers have had to resign. Still on the McCain wagon are uber-lobbyists Charlie Black and campaign manager Rick Davis. Media Matters\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1058,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1058","url_meta":{"origin":916,"position":2},"title":"Hollywood Celebrities vs. Washington Lobbyists","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/17\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night I attended the Barack Obama fundraiser at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills. No, I did not pay $2,500 to see Barbra Streisand serenade the candidate and 800 of his closest Hollywood friends. But I did mingle with these elitists outside of the lobby as the overflow\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art\/Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Art\/Culture","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=9"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1014,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1014","url_meta":{"origin":916,"position":3},"title":"John McCain’s Fear Of The Internets","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/13\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Last month John McCain said that Americans are tired of the Internet. It's highly unlikely that he was actually speaking for all Americans, or even anything more than a small brood of Luddites. It is more likely that he himself is tired of the Internet, or perhaps just tired, period.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1052,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1052","url_meta":{"origin":916,"position":4},"title":"Palin Boots McCain From Top Of The Ticket","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/11\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Judging by the treatment Sarah Palin is receiving from the media, a casual observer could be forgiven for assuming that she is the candidate for president and John McCain is her running mate. Wednesday evening she arrived back in her home state of Alaska and all three cable news networks\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1005,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1005","url_meta":{"origin":916,"position":5},"title":"Media Diagnosed With ADD","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/6\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) has confirmed what many observers have already suspected. The media suffers from a severe case of Attention Distortion Disorder. \"For the first time since this general election campaign began in early June, Republican John McCain attracted virtually as much media\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}