WaPo picks up the McCain - Iseman story - "Ties To Lobbyist Worried Aides" - Weaver named as source

[jefferson_dem]

McCain's Ties To Lobbyist Worried Aides
Before 2000 Campaign, Advisers Tried to Bar Her

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Michael D Shear
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 21, 2008; A01

Aides to Sen. John McCain confronted a telecommunications lobbyist in late 1999 and asked her to distance herself from the senator during the presidential campaign he was about to launch, according to one of McCain's longest-serving political strategists.

John Weaver, who served as McCain's closest confidant until leaving his current campaign last year, said he met with Vicki Iseman at the Center Cafe in Union Station and urged her to stay away from McCain. Association with a lobbyist would undermine his image as an opponent of special interests, aides had concluded.

Members of the senator's small circle of advisers also confronted McCain directly, according to sources, warning him that his continued relationship with a lobbyist who had business before the powerful Commerce Committee he chaired threatened to derail his presidential ambitions.

<SNIP>

Iseman, 40, who joined the Arlington-based firm of Alcalde & Fay as a secretary and rose to partner within a few years, often touted her access to the chairman of the Senate commerce committee as she worked on behalf of clients such as Cablevision, EchoStar and Tribune Broadcasting, according to several other lobbyists who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

McCain, after his unsuccessful 2000 campaign, has emerged as the front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. His reputation as a crusader for Washington reform -- forged during almost 30 years in the Senate -- is based largely on his stinging critiques of the role played by lobbyists. He routinely decries earmarks, or pet projects, inserted into legislation. He has claimed repeatedly that he has "never, ever done a favor for any lobbyist or special interest group." It was this reputation that McCain's closest aides sought to protect.

"We were running a campaign about reforming Washington, and her showing up at events and saying she had close ties to McCain was harmful," said one aide.

The aide said the message to Iseman that day at Union Station in 1999 was clear: "She should get lost." The aide said Iseman stood up and left angrily.

<SNIP>

Three telecom lobbyists and a former McCain aide, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Iseman spoke up regularly at meetings of telecom lobbyists in Washington, extolling her connections to McCain and his office. She would regularly volunteer at those meetings to be the point person for the telecom industry in dealing with McCain's office.

Concern about Iseman's presence around McCain at one point led to her being banned from his Senate office, according to sources close to McCain.

<SNIP>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/20/AR2008022002898_pf.html

[Just-plain-Kathy]

1. Wow, if she was seeing McCain in 1999, she was 32 years old. Yuck.

:puke:

[spooky3]

2. the most obnoxious thing to me is

that sending her away as if she were a misbehaving child misses the point entirely.

If McCain was behaving unethically and giving a lobbyist unfair advantages, then HIS behavior is the problem and it's only a matter of time before he found/finds another lobbyist and repeated/s the pattern. Surely his own staff were not too stupid to see that. Or were they?

[TexasObserver]

3. There are a number of Washington lobbyists who are ...

... power fuckers. They do it to get close to power, to get close to committee chairs, to get things they want. Don't know if she's one or not.

But it's not that unusual. Getting outed, though, is unusual.

If Weaver is the source, he left the campaign some time ago. Grudge? Could be. Setting up a book deal? Could be. Carrying water for someone in the Puke party who wants to bust out McCain now? Could be. All of the above? Probably.