McCain is fond of calling us all his friends and, as he revealed at his press conference on Thursday, he is also fond of telling us just how many friends he has in Washington.
I have many friends in Washington who represent various interests and those who don't and I consider her a friend...I have many friends who represent various interests ranging from the firemen, to the police to senior citizens to various interests particularly before my committee and I had meetings with hundreds of them and that was my job to do to get their input. Obviously, people who represent interests are fine, that's their constitutional right, the question is do they have access or unwarranted influence and certainly no one ever has in the conduct of my public life and my legislative agenda.
As Chris Cillizza notes, this is not exactly a winning line of defense for McCain.
While that argument may be technically correct, it's a political loser -- especially in a change-oriented election like this one. Obama's political rise has been fueled, at least in part, by his denunciation of the pay-to-play culture in Washington and his promise to clean up Washington if elected president.McCain, too, has railed against special interests throughout his political life. But, by trying to defuse the Iseman questions, the Arizona senator may well have created a long-term problem for himself.
Part of the problem for McCain is the more he talks about all these friends he has and insists they are perfectly legitimate friends representing interests not of the special variety, the more digging people are likely to do into who exactly these friends are. We've already seen WaPo's piece revealing McCain's campaign is teeming with lobbyists; Joe Conason, Christy Hardin Smith and Marcy Wheeler are on it as well, as is Brave New Films, which has done what they do best over at The Real McCain:
The real problem that this continued focus on McCain's "friends" poses for McCain is the extent to which it links him with Bush. As Marcy said:
We already know what happens when lobbyists take over the Oval Office. If John McCain is elected, along with his buddies Charlie Black, Rick Davis, and Vicki Iseman, you can expect more of the same.
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