Primary Thread IV: Texas Black Gold or Pennsylvania Coal for Clinton?

[Ramo]

He's still a couple hundred short, IIRC. Unless Romney still gives McCain his delegates. Which would be unlikely if this story is substantive.

[DanS]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
A more interesting take is that the Times decides to release this story when McCain wins the Republican primary, but the Dems are still fighting. Rumors (probably on right wing sites) are that some influential Dems wanted the Times to halt the story until it could be more useful.

Yeh, this was released precisely when it will have the least impact.

To be honest, I'm surprised that McCain was the one to whom the Drudge story is attached. I thought it was Obama. Or Thompson.

All the 80 year old's are saying "there's hope for us yet! Viagra was only the beginning!"

[Zkribbler]

McCain has been slimed.

If the newsworthiness of this story were converted to cannibis, only Dubai would call for an arrest.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Wow... the Times did what no one else could do (as DD referred to earlier):

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8617.html

Rush Limbaugh, who has been critical of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), embraced him today now that they have a common enemy: The New York Times.

Limbaugh and other conservative commentators rushed to defend McCain on Thursday against a potentially damaging article in The New York Times, embracing a maverick they have often attacked.

"You're surprised that Page Six-type gossip is on the front page of The New York Times?" Limbaugh asked as he began his radio show. "Where have you been? How in the world can anybody be surprised?"

Limbaugh said earlier in an e-mail to Politico that the Times article about McCain’s relationship with a female lobbyist was a clear case of "the drive-by media ... trying to take him out."

Laura Ingraham, another influential conservative radio host, asserted that the Times waited until McCain was on the brink of the Republican presidential nomination and now is seeking to "contaminate" him with an article that she calls "absurd" and "ridiculous."

CBN.org, the website of the Christian Broadcasting Network, calls an attack by the Times "a conservative badge of honor."

Ironically, a potentially damaging article about McCain may help bond him to conservatives, who are relishing the fact that now he needs them.

...

[Kuciwalker]

[Whoha]

Originally posted by DD
What are the chances of this story (barring anything substantive coming up) helping his cred among the Right?

Remember back when John McCain was the media darling?

[DanS]

Not one to miss a spin, the New York Times headlines are saying that McCain "denies aides’ statements about lobbyist."

Interestingly, the accompanying article doesn't spin it. And you know who makes the headlines... The editors, as a review of any day's Washington Times makes abundantly clear.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Interestingly as well, reading an editorial on the Huffington Post, the Washington Post ran a similar story but WITHOUT the stuff about an affair. They didn't think they had enough on that stuff (which is really the thing, rightly or wrongly, that drives stories like this).

[Imran Siddiqui]

Another very interesting article from the Huffington Post today:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lanny-davis/my-role-in-the-mccain-sto_b_87788.html

Lanny Davis

My Role in the McCain Story

Posted February 21, 2008 | 12:09 PM (EST)

I have direct knowledge of a part of the issue reported in today's New York Times and Washington Post.

I was a lobbyist for one of the parties, WQED, a Pittsburgh public television station, which sought help from Senator John McCain with the FCC on its matter. The other two parties involved in this matter were Cornerstone Broadcasting and Paxson Broadcasting.

Bottom line: what was omitted from both the Times and the Post stories was that what I wanted Senator McCain to do, he refused to do. And he did so out of a concern of appearances of impropriety. That is a fact.

In the spring of 2000, I was quoted in the Washington Post stating that fact or something close to it when this story was first written -- I believe shortly after Senator McCain had defeated then Governor Bush in the 2000 New Hampshire Primary.

I repeated that fact to a Washington Post reporter several weeks ago. I never heard from the New York Times, even though, as just stated, I was on-the-record in 2000 with the Post. Yet neither newspaper, for whatever reason, included that fact in either story.

I have no ax to grind on behalf of Senator McCain. I have a high regard for him and often say so when I do TV appearances to discuss the presidential campaign. I disagree with him on most issues -- especially the Iraq War. I am known to be a pretty strong liberal Democrat. I do not plan on voting for Senator McCain for president.

I make this post only to set the record straight. I would have thought my on-record comment on what happened regarding Senator McCain (and my unhappiness with his unwillingness to do what I thought was in the public interest and the best interest of my client), especially given my political preferences, might have been relevant to the story.

Some brief background:

The issue on which WQED asked me for help was that it was in serious financial distress and, possibly to save its very existence, it wished to sell its second public TV station in Pittsburgh reserved for public television, WQEX, to Cornerstone. The latter was a Christian-content broadcaster. The plan was for Cornerstone to then sell its commercial station to Paxson Broadcasting, a commercial broadcaster.

Opponents to the transaction opposed the transaction because, among other reasons, they did not want to "de-reserve" the second public TV station, WQEX, as a "reserved" and dedicated channel for public TV, i.e., they did not want to reduce the total (and limited) number of stations in the U.S. that were "reserved" for public television. As a long-time supporter and fan of public TV, I was personally sensitive to this concern.

The group of lobbyists for WQED/WQEX, Paxson and, I believe, Cornerstone (not sure about the latter) met to discuss strategy. I urged that the main reason the FCC should approve this transaction is to save a great public TV station. I proposed asking Senator McCain to write the FCC and at last point out the economic distress faced by WQED and that this transaction could help save them. It was natural to think of Senator McCain to write such a letter since he was then the Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee and, thus, would be the obvious person to communicate this legitimate position to the FCC.

But I was informed by FCC experts in the room (I was not one of them) that the FCC's "ex parte" rule forbade a member Congress from communicating with the FCC and take a position advocating on the merits for any side during an ongoing proceeding. I thought that rule would not be violated if Senator McCain simply pointed out the fact of the financial distress faced by the public TV station, WQED, and then go on to state that he is not taking a position one way or the other on whether the transaction would be approved.

The group agreed to try to ask Senator McCain to send such a letter.

I do not recall which of the lobbyists in the room was asked to approach Senator McCain's office to ask for a letter along the lines that I had proposed. I do remember there were several who volunteered.

I then learned that Senator McCain and his staff were not comfortable with mentioning the economic danger to WQED, even if Senator McCain went on to state in the letter that he took no position on the merits of the decision. I was told Senator McCain was only willing to the send a letter with a "vanilla" status inquiry, together with a request that the matter be handled as expeditiously as possible (or words to that effect) -- i.e., taking no position on the merits of approval or disapproval of the WQED/WQEX-Cornerstone-Paxson transactions whatsoever.

And that was the letter Senator McCain sent -- to my disappointment, I must add.

The decision by the FCC many months later was to approve the sale by WQED of WQEX -- but only if the station would not be "de-reserved," i.e., it would remain as a dedicated public TV station. It is my understanding (here my memory fades) that the FCC imposed other conditions on approval of the three-cornered transaction, among others, that the Cornerstone could not have any programming on WQEX that including "proselytizing."

One final fact: Opponents of the transaction filed a complaint against Senator McCain for violating the ex parte rule as a result of the letter that he sent, even the letter expressly asked only for status and expedited review, and took not position on the merits.

The FCC investigated the matter and found no violation by Senator McCain. That fact was also omitted from both the Times and the Post story today.

[DanS]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Interestingly as well, reading an editorial on the Huffington Post, the Washington Post ran a similar story but WITHOUT the stuff about an affair. They didn't think they had enough on that stuff (which is really the thing, rightly or wrongly, that drives stories like this).

Rereading the WaPo's article, it did include a reference to his aides confronting him about the relationship with the lobbyist. He has since denied this. To be fair to the WaPo, it led its story with McCain's aides confronting the lobbyist, rather than the aides confronting McCain.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
@ Imran: What are the chances of this story (barring anything substantive coming up) helping his cred among the Right?

Why? Because real right-winger leaders can't keep it in their pants?

[Dinner]

I understand that Hillary would need to take 57% of the vote in both Ohio and Texas in order to get the majority of pledged delegates. Unfortunately for her she's only running 52% in Ohio and 51% in Texas so it looks like Obama will retain the lead in the delegate count unless something changes between now and March 4.

Obama has won the last 10 out of 10 primaries so he's really built up a lead.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Admiral
Apparently, the story is weak because the McCain camp has been lobbying the Times to not run the story since December 20th. The more juicy bits, presumably, have been lawyered out of the story, but may make there way back in over the coming days. The Times only broke the story to get a jump on the New Republic, and to prove that the Times doesn't always sit on stories like the NSA wiretapping story (written before 2004 election, broken in 2005).

Very true.

Originally posted by Bosh

Of course that doesn't stop Freeps et. al. from making this sound like a nefarious NYT conspiracy against everything they hold dear.

Equally true. The reality is McCain has been threatening to sue and the editor demanded the story be held until an extra round of fact checking could be done in order to cover there asses. As soon as it was clear another publication was going to scoupe the story the NYT decided to run it.

Now the right wing radio nuts are claiming it is proof of a conspiracy; that the media held back on McCain just so they could stab him once he'd locked up the nomination. I wish I had some of what those people are smoking.

[Bosh]

The reality is McCain has been threatening to sue and the editor demanded the story be held until an extra round of fact checking could be done in order to cover there asses.

Also the McCain campaign is now denying doing anything whatsoever to keep the times from publishing the story, which seems to be, erm, not true...

*grabs more popcorn*

Now the right wing radio nuts

Not just them, the RNC sent out a mailer with the same claims.

[Dinner]

You have to admire the Republican spin machine. It can fabricate a message and get all their talking heads saying identical things on a moment's notice.