The men behind the McCain Campaign
 

John McCain has had at least 159 lobbyists running his campaign and raising money for him. The McCain Seven —all lobbyists—control the campaign filling roles from senior foreign policy advisor and finance co-chair all the way up to head of command, campaign manager...

You work as a lobbyist for a few months or a year and you're stuck with the label for the rest of your life. That's why I'll never be one, I wouldn't want anyone to think I had ulterior motives for making friends. Every member of congress has a few friends who work or have worked as lobbyists, McCain happens to have many since he's been in congress for so long. Biden probably has just as many lobbyist friends. Obama isn't likely to have made friends with many of them in the past four years, so maybe he's above their influence, but that also means he doesn't know how the beltway really works, either. Whether McCain or Obama get elected, former lobbyists will fill a few cabinet positions, so neither camp is above reproach on this matter.

I disagree. He knows exactly how it 'works', and doesn't like it.

Are you not sick of a government which is run on influence peddling or do you not think Obama will be able to resist that peddling?


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I don't like the way congress works either, and if Obama can shake things up then more power to him. I don't think that's going to happen though. Congress prides itself on its ability to resist the president's influence. Having made so few political connections in his short stay in the Senate will only hamper his ability to change how the government operates. Far too many careers depend on the sleazy insider politics of the beltway for one man to be allowed to undo it all.

Besides, Obama will be too preoccupied with the bureaucracies of his own branch of government to be concerned with congress' back room dealings. Despite himself and his, I believe, genuine desire to change things for the better, he can't. Maybe he believes he can; maybe he should go back to being a community organizer, he'd be better at that.

But he will not be 'one man'. He will be a Democratic President with a Democratic Congress.

Better if he can get a democratic Senate with the power to annul the filibuster.


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A Democrat congress maybe. We have a long history of electing one party to the control the White House and an other to control Capitol Hill. The Dems may actually widen their lead in congress; they won't control both houses for more than two years at the most.

I guess Obama won't be just one man as long as he has a career senator as his VP. He'll be Bush to Biden's Cheney. The only difference will be that he'll give such a performance that no one will notice the puppet strings.

See, you say you're Independent, but then you toe the Republican line.

First, it's the 'Democratic Party', not the 'Democrat Party'; as the Republicans, and now you, call it.

Second, Biden isn't pulling Obama's strings, he's always been his own man. On the other hand, McCain isn't running his own campaign and isn't making his own decisions.


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I say I'm undecided, not independent; I am a registered Republican.

There's nothing democratic about the Democrats (which is good since we're not a democracy) so calling themselves the Democratic Party is very misleading. At least they don't call themselves the Democracy Party, that would be unforgivable.

Biden isn't pulling Obama's strings yet, but when it comes time for Obama to make demands of congress he's going to turn to his VP and ask for advice and access to his personal connections. He'll be at Biden's mercy then.

Good we know where you stand. I'll continue to try and turn you :)


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