THE HORSE MCCAIN RODE IN ON
New York Post
By RYAN SAGER
AS Sen. John McCain gears up for a prospective presidential run in 2008, he's trying to put an ugly little incident behind him — one that makes him look like a flat-out hypocrite on his signature issue, campaign-finance reform.
If members of the national media are anything more than lapdogs for the war-hero, "maverick" senator, they'll start asking some tough questions about a bogus little think tank in Alexandria, Va., called the Reform Institute.
According to the inside-the-beltway paper Roll Call, McCain has stepped down as chairman of the Reform Institute, citing "negative publicity" from earlier this year when it was discovered that the Institute was accepting large cash contributions from businesses with interests before the Senate Commerce Committee.
At the time, McCain was chairman of the Commerce Committee (he no longer is, due to committee term limits).
An Associated Press investigation back in March revealed that:
* Cablevision Systems Corp. cut two checks, each for $100,000, to the Reform Institute in July of 2003 and August of 2004.
* The first check was solicited by Rick Davis — McCain's chief political adviser and president of the Reform Institute — just one week after Cablevision chief Charles Dolan testified before the Commerce Committee in favor of "a la carte" pricing (which would allow cable customers to pick and choose the channels they subscribe to).
* Just 12 days after the second check was cut, McCain wrote to Dolan, urging him to "feel free to contact me and discuss these issues further."
* In between the two checks, in May of 2004, McCain wrote to the Federal Communications Commission advocating Cablevision's position. McCain also wrote to other cable companies on the same matter.
McCain claimed that "there's not a conflict of interest when you're involved in an organization that is nonpartisan, nonprofit, nonpolitical."
To believe this, however, one would have to believe that Cablevision was just really, really interested in clean government — not buying access to a powerful senator.
What's most hypocritical, however, is McCain's ludicrous insistence that the Reform Institute is anything other than an arm of his political machine. Isn't he, after all, the one always so concerned about following the "spirit," not just the letter, of the law?
The Reform Institute was — at least in spirit — part of his political machine when his chief political adviser was reeling in $200,000 from Cablevision back in 2003 and 2004, and it still is today.
The Reform Institute is housed in the same Old Towne office building as McCain's re-election committee (Friends of John McCain), his PAC (Straight Talk America) and his adviser's lobbying firm (Davis Manafort & Freedman). Its Web site is something of a shrine to McCain, with his name in every other press release. The senator appears at the institute's press conferences, and his name is used in fundraising letters.
It also pays salaries to McCain's staffers of his 2000 campaign: Davis was taking a yearly $110,000 "consulting" fee until recently. (Now that McCain is distancing himself from the institute, Davis is being downgraded to a "volunteer" with no salary.) Then there's Trevor Potter, who was general counsel to McCain's 2000 campaign. The Reform Institute told The Post earlier this year that he is paid no salary, but the group's 990 (an IRS form filed by tax-exempt groups) shows that his law firm, Caplin and Drysdale, was paid a $50,000 fee for legal services in fiscal year 2003.
Much of the rest of the Institute's staff is made up of former McCain staffers, too, including Carla Eudy, who doubles as treasurer of the Reform Institute and chief fund-raiser for McCain.
McCain may no longer be chairman of the Reform Institute, but he's still neck deep in it. And there are a lot of questions left to answer:
* We know what Cablevision got for its $200,000. But donations of more than $50,000 were also made by entities controlled by the heads of satellite company EchoStar and Spanish-language media company Univision. What did they get?
* The Reform Institute makes a big show of posting the names of all its contributors on its Web site. But there's at least one missing. The group's 2003 990 form has a special paragraph inserted, explaining that a mysterious "Contributor No. 8" wants to remain anonymous. The Reform Institute has refused to answer questions over the last week from The Post as to even the amount this contributor donated, and just who knows his or her identity. (Davis has said that an elected Republican official made an anonymous donation of more than $50,000 — but it's not clear whether this is the same person, and just who knows his or her identity.) Who is Contributor No. 8?
* Reportedly, the Reform Institute's fund-raising has doubled in the last year. Is that because of a sudden surge of interest in supporting "a thoughtful, moderate voice for reform in the campaign-finance and election-administration debates" — the institute's self-description? Or is it because of a surge in interest for a McCain 2008 White House bid?
McCain's dealings are not something he or his speech-police compatriots would accept from anyone else in politics. Anonymous donations, in particular, are seen by such folks as utterly toxic.
Changing the window dressing is not enough. John McCain is the Reform Institute, and the Reform Institute is John McCain. Either he should bring it up to the standards he sets for everyone else, or he should get off the high horse he plans to ride into the White House three years from now.
E-mail: rsager@nypost.com |
