The Democratic party is certianly championing

[Yuttie]

Obama this election.... The Republicans were waiting to release info about a possible work place harassment issue as well him reneging on campaigne finance promise now look....Lobbyist scandal plus him and FEC ina hot water bout campaigne money...LOL...this zhit is funnier than "Welcome Home Rascoe Jenkins".......

McCain: Reports on lobbyist a 'smear'

By LIBBY QUAID, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 10 minutes ago

TOLEDO, Ohio - Sen. John McCain, responding to published reports about his relationship with a lobbyist, says he "will not allow a smear campaign" to distract from his presidential campaign.
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The New York Times quoted anonymous aides as saying they had urged McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman to stay away from each other prior to his failed presidential campaign in 2000. In its own follow-up story, The Washington Post quoted longtime aide John Weaver, who split with McCain last year, as saying he met with lobbyist Iseman and urged her to stay away from McCain.
Weaver told the Times he arranged the meeting after "a discussion among the campaign leadership" about Iseman.
Aides said McCain, now on the verge of securing the Republican nomination, would address the allegations at a news conference Thursday morning.
The published reports said McCain and Iseman each denied having a romantic relationship. Neither story asserted that there was a romantic relationship and offered no evidence that there was, reporting only that aides worried about the appearance of McCain having close ties to a lobbyist with business before the Senate Commerce Committee on which McCain served.
The stories allege that McCain wrote letters and pushed legislation involving television station ownership that would have benefited Iseman's clients.
In a statement issued by his presidential campaign, McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said:
"It is a shame that The New York Times has lowered its standards to engage in a hit-and-run smear campaign. John McCain has a 24-year record of serving our country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the issues at stake in this election.
"Americans are sick and tired of this kind of gutter politics, and there is nothing in this story to suggest that John McCain has ever violated the principles that have guided his career."
McCain's campaign also issued a lengthy statement insisting that his actions did not benefit any one party or favor any particular interest.
McCain defended his integrity last December, after he was questioned about reports that the Times was investigating allegations of legislative favoritism by the Arizona Republican and that his aides had been trying to dissuade the newspaper from publishing a story.
"I've never done any favors for anybody — lobbyist or special-interest group. That's a clear, 24-year record," he told reporters.
McCain and four other senators were accused two decades ago of trying to influence banking regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, a savings and loan financier later convicted of securities fraud. The Senate Ethics Committee ultimately decided that McCain had used "poor judgment" but that his actions "were not improper" and warranted no penalty.
McCain has said that episode helped spur his drive to change campaign finance laws in an attempt to reduce the influence of money in politics.
In late 1999, McCain twice wrote letters to the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of Florida-based Paxson Communications — which had paid Iseman as its lobbyist — urging quick consideration of a proposal to buy a television station license in Pittsburgh. At the time, Paxson's chief executive, Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson, also was a major contributor to McCain's 2000 presidential campaign.
McCain did not urge the FCC commissioners to approve the proposal, but he asked for speedy consideration of the deal, which was pending from two years earlier. In an unusual response, then-FCC Chairman William Kennard complained that McCain's request "comes at a sensitive time in the deliberative process" and "could have procedural and substantive impacts on the commission's deliberations and, thus, on the due process rights of the parties."
McCain wrote the letters after he received more than $20,000 in contributions from Paxson executives and lobbyists. Paxson also lent McCain his company's jet at least four times during 1999 for campaign travel.

[Yuttie]

fact that he took out live insurance in order to a loan will also spark more attention towards his age...

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 6 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The government's top campaign finance regulator says John McCain can't drop out of the primary election's public financing system until he answers questions about a loan he obtained to kickstart his once faltering presidential campaign.
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Federal Election Commission Chairman David Mason, in a letter to McCain this week, said the all-but-certain Republican nominee needs to assure the commission that he did not use the promise of public money to help secure a $4 million line of credit he obtained in November.
McCain's lawyer, Trevor Potter, said Wednesday evening that McCain has withdrawn from the system and that the FEC can't stop him. Potter said the campaign did not encumber the public funds in any way.
McCain, a longtime advocate of stricter limits on money in politics, was one of the few leading presidential candidates to seek FEC certification for public money during the primaries. The FEC determined that he was entitled to at least $5.8 million. But McCain did not obtain the money, and he notified the FEC earlier this month that he would bypass the system, freeing him from its spending limits.
But just as McCain was beginning to turn his attention to a likely Democratic opponent, Mason, a Republican appointee to the commission, essentially said, "Not so fast."
By accepting the public money, McCain would be limited to spending about $54 million for the primaries, a ceiling his campaign is near. That would significantly hinder his ability to finance his campaign between now and the Republican National Convention in September.
Complicating the dispute is the FEC's current lack of a quorum. The six-member commission has four vacancies and Senate Democrats and Republicans are at loggerheads over how to fill them.
In his letter, Mason told McCain he would need the votes of four commissioners to accept his withdrawal from the system.
"The commission will consider your request at such a time as it has a quorum," Mason wrote.
Without action by the Senate, McCain could be waiting indefinitely.
"We believe that Senator McCain had a clear legal right to withdraw from the primary matching fund system and he has done so," Potter said. "No FEC action was or is required for withdrawal."
Potter said McCain will continue with his campaign and not adhere to the public financing system's limits on spending. Without a full commission, Mason has little enforcement power. Likewise, without an FEC, McCain has no way to appeal Mason's conclusion.
At issue is the fine print in the loan agreement between McCain and Fidelity Bank & Trust. McCain secured the loan using his list of contributors, his promise to use that list to raise money to pay off the loan and by taking out a life insurance policy.
But the agreement also said that if McCain were to withdraw from the public financing system before the end of 2007 and then were to lose the New Hampshire primary by more than 10 percentage points, he would have had to reapply to the FEC for public matching funds and provide the bank additional collateral for the loan.
In his letter to McCain, Mason said the commission would allow a candidate to withdraw from the public finance system as long as he had not received any public funds and had not pledged the certification of such funds "as security for private financing."
Citing the loan agreement, Mason wrote: "We note that in your letter, you state that neither you nor your (presidential campaign) committee has pledged the certification of matching payment funds as security for private financing. In preparation for commission consideration of your request upon establishment of a quorum, we invite you to expand on the rationale for that conclusion."
McCain has been an outspoken critic of the FEC and he and Mason have had ideological differences over campaign finance law for years.
"We will of course carefully review and respond to the questions asked about the collateral for the campaign's bank loan," Potter said Wednesday. "We very carefully negotiated that loan on the basis that the federal matching funds certification we held would not be security or collateral for that loan."
One former Republican FEC chairman, Michael Toner, said McCain should not need action by the FEC to pull out of public financing.
"If a candidate indicates he or she does not want the money and does so before payments are made and does not take advantage of the promise of future payments, then he or she is free to withdraw from the system," said Toner, who advised former GOP presidential contender Fred Thompson. "That's my understanding of exactly what happened here."
The dispute comes at an awkward time for McCain. While he has sought to bypass the public financing system for the primaries, he would like to participate in the system for the general election and he is attempting to hold Democrat Barack Obama to his offer to participate in the system too.
If McCain were to face Obama in the general election under public financing rules, each would get about $85 million to spend between September and Election Day in November. McCain would be the clear beneficiary because Obama has become the most prolific fundraiser in presidential politics and likely would be able to amass much more than $85 million from his donors.