The Big Money Boys Go All In For McCain

The evidence is out there if you really want to understand who each Presidential candidate respects and whose views they share. On the one hand, you have the guy who won't accept federal PAC or lobbyist money. On the other hand, you have the guy who has taken $181,000 from lobbyists.

Some lobbyists chafe at being asked for money by the McCain campaign while he disparages lobbyists as agents of “big-moneyed special interests.” But they know that such criticism is a staple of politics.

“We are 100 percent behind McCain,” said Kathryn Braden Huffard, a lobbyist at Fierce, Isakowitz, whose clients include Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant. “In the wake of the Abramoff affair, it seems, there has to be a villain. But Senator McCain understands that many lobbyists are smart people who have experience on the issues.”

The most obvious example of this is the uncorking of over a million dollars in oil company money after McCain reversed his position on offshore drilling.

Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month -- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban -- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May [...]

McCain delivered the speech before heading to Texas for a series of fundraisers with energy industry executives, and the day after the speech he raised $1.3 million at a private luncheon and reception at the San Antonio Country Club, according to local news accounts.

"The timing was significant," said David Donnelly, the national campaigns director of the Public Campaign Action Fund, a nonpartisan campaign finance reform group that conducted the analysis of McCain's oil industry contributions. "This is a case study of how a candidate can change a policy position in the interest of raising money."

Moneyed interests back candidates who will allow them to profit in the same way, and keep as much of their earnings as possible. That's just common sense. And the policies that are crushing the middle class, straining the military and making us hated around the world are good for these moneyed interests.

Just so you know what side everyone's on.

UPDATE: Here's a perfect example of how these moneyed interests further their agenda - a top McCain fundraiser is lobbying for Chevron to get the Bush Administration to put a halt on a $16 million dollar fine from the Ecudorian government for them to clean up the rain forest.