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Tag: Politics
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McCain adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer learned ropes as lobbyist, crusader
Her short, blonde hair is perfectly coiffed; she smiles beatifically through Chris Matthews’ tirades and wields John McCain’s latest talking points like a sword in battle.
Nancy Miller Pfotenhauer, senior adviser to GOP presidential nominee John McCain, has prepared for this role for 20 years.
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Some have suggested that the McCain campaign has put her out front to make the Republican ticket seem more female-friendly – a strategy that may also be reflected in the White House’s choice of Dana Perino as spokeswoman.
Pfotenhauer, however, is no Sally-come-lately to the GOP; her connections to the politically active Koch brothers, in particular, go back two decades.
After graduating from the University of Georgia, she got a masters degree in economics at George Mason University, a major beneficiary of Koch family largesse. (No coincidence that Richard H. Fink, executive vice president of Koch Industries, is a member of the board of visitors of George Mason, and also president and director of two of the family’s charities – the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation and of the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.)
One of her mentors at George Mason was Williams – a darling of the conservative movement who appears as a substitute host on “The Rush Limbaugh Show,” and sits on boards of Koch-funded think tanks such as the Cato Institute.
She got her first job in Washington as a senior economist at the Republican National Committee in 1987, and was promoted to chief economist in 1988.
Leveraging her association with Williams, at age 24, she won a spot on the transition team for then-incoming President George H.W. Bush, according to a story in Daily Kos, where she advised on appointments to both the Federal Trade Commission and the Interstate Commerce Commission.
For the next two years, she worked as economic counsel to then-Sen. William Armstrong, a member of the Republican leadership who served on both the Finance and Budget Committees. In 1990, she was appointed chief economist of the President’s Council on Competitiveness, where she worked with Dan Quayle, among others.
Soon thereafter, she moved to the Washington office of Koch industries, becoming the company’s chief in-house lobbyist.
“At Koch, Pfotenhauer experienced first-hand the legislative and regulatory labyrinth that faces American companies and ultimately has an impact on consumers,” according to her own profile.
Gas pipelines were a major issue during her tenure there. In early 2000, Koch Industries agreed to a landmark $30 million civil settlement with the federal government, in an effort to resolve claims related to more than 300 oil spills from its pipelines and oil facilities in six states.
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In 2001, Pfotenhauer left Koch Industries to become president of the Independent Women’s Forum, a conservative research group that also received funding from Koch foundations.
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Founded by Rosalie (Ricky) Gaull Silberman in 1992, the women’s forum grew out of “Women for Judge Thomas,” which was created to defend Clarence Thomas against allegations of sexual harassment and other improprieties during his confirmation hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court.
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The group has been described as “a virtual Who’s Who of Washington’s Republican establishment” – besides Silberman, its directors emerita include Wendy Lee Gramm, Lynne Cheney and Midge Decter.
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Its stated goals are to build support for “a greater respect for limited government, equality under the law, property rights, free markets, strong families, and a powerful and effective national defense and foreign policy,” according to its website.
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The liberal-leaning People for the American Way, which is critical of the organization, describes it as “a secular counterpart to Religious Right women’s groups like Eagle Forum and Concerned Women for America….”
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It was through the women’s forum that Photenhauer was appointed by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to join the National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women in 2002 – though her group had vigorously opposed the law the committee was supposed to oversee.
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The appointments infuriated feminist groups, according to a Washington Post column by Dana Milbank:
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“I’m appalled but I’m not shocked,” said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. She said the IWF “makes light of violence against women on a regular basis.”
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Pfotenhauer said in an interview yesterday that her purpose was “not at all” to undo the law but to give states more flexibility in implementing it.
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“You have to look at domestic violence as a culture of intimacy,” she said, rather than a “one-size-fits-all, men-beat-up-women” framework.
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Pfotenhauer said it was the first time her organization has been invited to join the committee. “I’d hope we’ve been asked to participate in this because we have a different view but one that’s constructive,” she said.
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In October 2003, the women’s forum announced an affiliation with Citizens for a Sound Economy, now Americans For Prosperity – also Koch-funded groups – with which it shared staff and premises for several years. For a while Pfotenhauer was also president of Americans for Prosperity and executive vice president for Citizens for a Sound Economy.
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Pfotenhauer left those groups last year to become an adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign.
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She is married to Kurt Pfotenhauer, a former top lobbyist for the Mortgage Bankers Association who now heads the American Land Title Association.
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Anti-Obama ads target blue-collar workers in Macomb County, MI
The swift boats are sailing again.
But as The New York Times reported yesterday, they may be traveling on smaller waters.
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Rather, they’re running in small, targeted markets in battleground states in the belief that a small swing in voter preference can affect the outcome of this year’s presidential race.
This is especially clear in Michigan, a state that’s up for grabs.
Freedom’s Defense Fund, a conservative political-action group not connected to the campaign of Republican Sen. John McCain, has launched a series of ads attacking Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate.
The ads are appearing on cable stations in Macomb County, an area northeast of Detroit, and are targeted at “white, unionized auto workers,” the Times reports.
The two ads that have aired show Obama with controversial “friends,” his former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and the former mayor of Detroit, Kwame M. Kilpatrick.
The fact that the ads place Obama, an African-American, with two figures who are also African-American, has led Democrats to charge that the Freedom’s Defense Fund is attempting to exploit racial attitudes. Officials of the fund deny this charge.
While the fund may have changed some of its tactics for this campaign, a review of the group’s funding and staffing reveals some familiar players.
Billionaire Roger Milliken has contributed at least $15,000 to the fund since it started in 2004.
Ninety-one-years old, Milliken is the CEO and chairman of Milliken & Company, a South Carolina textile and chemical manufacturing concern.
He has given tens of thousands of dollars to conservative political candidates and groups over the years.
A long-time opponent of free trade and illegal immigration, Milliken this year backed California Congressman Duncan Hunter’s unsuccessful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
He also contributed to the campaigns of congressmen Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo.
In 1996, Milliken served as an adviser to the presidential campaign of Pat Buchanan. The campaign treasurer was Scott B. Mackenzie, who had earlier worked on the presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan.
The two men are now linked at the Freedom’s Defense Fund, Milliken as contributor and Mackenzie as treasurer.
Mackenzie also serves as the treasurer of the Black Republican Freedom Fund, another PAC.
And he’s listed as a staff member at BMW Direct Inc., a fund-raising consultant for conservative candidates and groups.
Michael Centanni, the chief operating officer of BMW Direct, is the chairman of Freedom’s Defense Fund.
The Times reports that subsequent advertisements by the fund will link Obama to Antoin Rezko, a Chicago real estate developer convicted on bribery charges; William Ayers, the former Weather Underground member; and Raila Odinga, the Kenyan prime minister.
Jerome S. Corsi, author of the anti-Obama biography Obama Nation is a paid consultant for the Freedom’s Defense Fund.
Former Mccain Adviser Phil Gramm Tied to Financial Turmoil
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Silver State bank fails; John McCain’s son had been director
It looks like Andrew McCain got out just in the nick of time.
McCain 46, the son of GOP presidential nominee John McCain, resigned as a director of troubled Silver State Bank and its parent company, Silver State Bancorp, on July 26, citing “personal reasons” – just five weeks before regulators shut down the federally-insured bank.
Regulators announced Friday that they had seized the Nevada bank and sold it, blaming its failure on soured loans in commercial real estate and land development, mainly in Los Vegas.
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Still, his involvement in a failed bank is politically awkward for his father’s campaign since it conjures memories of John McCain’s role in the 1980s savings and loan scandals when he was accused of improperly aiding Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association.
After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee cleared John McCain of impropriety, but chastised him for exercising poor judgment in helping Keating. Three other senators – Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, and Donald Riegle – were found to have improperly interfered with a federal investigation.
In Andrew McCain’s case, he had been appointed to the boards of Silver State and its holding company in February, and resigned five months later. Silver State issued a July 26 press release announcing his immediate resignation for “personal reasons.”
Only a week afterward, the company announced a $62.7 million net loss for the second quarter of the year – along with the resignations of its CEO and chairman, Corey Johnson and Bryan Norby, both of whom had co-founded the bank in 1996.
The bank said in a subsequent regulatory filing that its second-quarter net loss was actually more than $10 million higher than what it had originally announced. It also said in the filing that its worsening financial condition meant there is “uncertainty about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”
The holding company has 13 bank branches in Southern Nevada and four around Phoenix.
Silver State had $1.7 billion in deposits, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Nevada State Bank is taking over the deposits insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., leaving $20 million in uninsured deposits, which may not be wholly recovered. Silver State became the 11th federally insured bank to fail in 2008.
A Wall Street Journal story looking into Andrew McCain’s sudden exit suggested he had resigned at the urging of those who felt his position on the board could become a liability in his father’s presidential bid. The younger McCain, who is CFO of Phoenix-based Hensley & Co., the distributorship owned by his stepmother Cindy McCain, had also recently agreed to lead the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, and had concerns about balancing his responsibilities, according to the Journal .
In any case, he was not the first to leave the beleaguered bank.
Douglas French, then the executive vice president of commercial real estate lending, had resigned in May, also citing personal reasons. French is an associate editor of the conservative Liberty Watch magazine, which counts Bill O’Reilly and John Stossel among its contributing writers.
The younger McCain, who is one of two sons from his father’s first marriage, had previously served as a director of Choice Bank in Scottsdale, Arizona, from 2006 to April 1, 2008, when it was acquired by Silver State Bancorp
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McCain’s campaign for change is fueled by same old money machine
In accepting the GOP nomination for president last night, John McCain pledged to run as an iconoclast who will shake things up in Washington.
His reputation as a maverick and his selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate would signal that McCain is bringing change to the Republican Party.
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As they say in Casablanca, “Round up the usual suspects.”
The map above shows McCain bundlers who were also major supporters of George W. Bush in 2004. Because individual contributions are capped at $2,300 for the general election, bundlers – influential people who persuade friends, family and colleagues to contribute to a campaign – play a major role in presidential politics.
August A. Busch IIIRobert A. Mosbacher, former Commerce secretary and a friend of George H.W. Bush, is a bundler as well as general chairman of the campaign.
Other heavy hitters include:
- August A. Busch III of Anheuser-Busch
- Henry R. Kravis of Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts and Co.
- Robert Wood Johnson IV of Johnson Co.
- William H. Strong of Morgan Stanley
- Judy A. Black, whose husband Charles has advised Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Jesse Helms and Bob Dole
The McCain campaign has released a list of bundlers who have raised $50,000 or more. Of the 450 names listed, 63 have raised at least $500,000.
Related story: GOP donor Robert Wood Johnson gets royal reception at convention
Big donor Robert Wood Johnson gets royal reception from GOP
Robert Wood Johnson IV, known as “Woody,” got star treatment at the just-ended Republican convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
There was no mistaking what that was all about.
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As Michael Luo of the New York Times described in a story today, Johnson shared a skybox at the Xcel Energy Center with Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager. He was the only fund-raiser with his name emblazoned on his own hospitality suite, the “Woody Johnson Minneapolis-St. Paul 2008 Host Committee Private Lounge.”
And Luo describes how on Tuesday evening, before the convention really got going, Johnson was among a cluster of McCain campaign officials and supporters hovering outside a suite guarded by an aide.
As Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard and senior McCain adviser, chatted in one small circle, Mr. Johnson, 61, was at the center of another next to her, before he disappeared inside the suite with Mr. Davis.
Johnson told Luo that he only takes on candidates and causes he really believes in.
Earlier this year, for instance, he made as many as 50 calls a day, organizing a New York City fund-raiser for McCain that brought in $7 million in a single evening. He did that in part by importuning some of his billionaire buddies, among them real-estate mogul Donald Trump and David Koch, co-owner of Koch Industries.
Like many of McCain’s biggest supporters, Johnson has long been a player in Republican politics. He was a Bush Ranger in 2000 and 2004, raising more than $200,000 in each election, according to the Times.
By all accounts, he has used his influence to advance his philanthropic, as much as business interests, pushing for more federal funding for research, for instance, for juvenile diabetes and lupus, which afflict two of his daughters, for instance. But there’s also little doubt his access has helped him as the owner of the Jets and his search for a new stadium for the team.
Still Johnson played down the significance of his access to McCain.
“You can call the senator too,” he told Luo.
Related story: McCain’s campaign for change is fueled by same old money machine
Mark Salter ‘channels’ John McCain for his biggest speech yet (Muckety)
The prime-time acceptance speech to be delivered tonight by Republican presidential nominee John McCain has been crafted by a man described as the candidate’s best friend, as well as his Boswell.
For two decades, Mark Salter has made channeling McCain’s voice his life’s work. He co-authored five books with the Arizona senator (and split the proceeds 50-50), including the best-selling memoir, Faith of Our Fathers. He has also been McCain’s speechwriter, adviser and closest confidante, surviving countless campaign shake-ups.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
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From the very start, McCain’s history as a former prisoner of war was part of his political brief. He was first elected to Congress as a war hero beneath the slogan “a name Arizonans are talking about.”
But it was Salter who distilled and refined the narrative.
“Salter has transformed his boss into a character worthy of literature, enlivening his inner conflicts and drawing out his motivations,” wrote Sasha Issenberg of the Boston Globe. “Salter has given the blunt McCain a new voice as a reflective narrator of his own actions – made evident in the “imperfect servant” line, in which our protagonist earns our trust by acknowledging his flaw.”
In Faith of My Fathers, published in 1999 during his first presidential campaign, McCain’s release from prison became a revelatory moment:
“I had remembered a dying man’s legacy to his son,” McCain wrote, “and when I needed it most, I had found my freedom abiding in it.”
That theme – of discovering individual purpose through a “cause greater than self-interest” – became central to McCain’s narrative.
Besides getting McCain better than anyone, Salter has also demonstrated “a one-of-a-kind instinct for how to craft McCain’s public image,” wrote Michael Crowley of the New Republic.
“Over the years, he has taken the raw material of McCain’s biography and temperament and turned it into a compelling narrative that supersedes politics–one about an independent-minded war hero who celebrates courage and humility, demands individual sacrifice, and excoriates vanity.”
A burly, chain-smoker, Salter met McCain for the first time in the mid-1980s and immediately hit it off with him.
He had grown up in Davenport, Iowa, the son of a Korean War veteran, who apparently shared McCain’s gruff modesty. “People write about how McCain is unnecessarily modest,” Salter told Salon in 1999. “But it’s perfectly consistent with the way my father talked about his war experience.”
Salter’s unusual life story also appealed to McCain. After a long rebellious streak working on railroads and singing in a rock band, Salter had gone to night school, ultimately graduating from Georgetown University.
Drawn to politics, he got a job writing speeches for UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and got to know McCain’s press secretary who invited him to do some freelance work for the senator.
The two men immediately struck up a friendship. Within four years, Salter had been elevated to McCain’s chief of staff. Salter also eventually married McCain’s former scheduler, Diane, with whom he has two daughters.
By all accounts, Salter is fiercely loyal. He once wrestled a critic of the senator to the floor outside his office and held him until the police came.
And last summer, with McCain’s campaign sinking in the polls and running out of money, the senator let go his top managers. The day after the shake-up, he talked to Salter about the future. Salter assured the senator that he was “a McCain guy,” and that he would do whatever the senator wanted, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Now, in a hotly contested election, Salter faces his greatest challenge to date – to sell his candidate as the real agent of change. The speech he reportedly labored over all summer will purportedly spotlight McCain’s moments of self-sacrifice, including his refusal of early release from captivity in Vietnam, and his decision to challenge his own party over campaign-finance reform.
The contrast, he says, will be the “selfishness” of “self-interested” political partisans who, he argues, have risked nothing of substance in their lives.
“Obviously I’ve got to get this one right,” he told the Wall Street Journal.
Sarah Palin’s firing of public safety commissioner probed by lawmakers (Muckety)
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin portrays herself as a traditional wife and mother, in addition to a rising star in Alaska politics, who has successfully balanced her myriad responsibilities.
But tension between her familial and gubernatorial roles is at the heart of one of the more contentious questions dogging the GOP vice-presidential candidate back home: Did she try to use her power as governor to settle a family score by pressuring a top state official to fire her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper then involved in a bitter custody fight with her sister?
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The panel was slated to release its findings about what the Alaska media have been calling “Troopergate” at the end of October, only days before Election Day.
Now, in what appears to be a bid to slow down the probe, if not derail it, a private lawyer hired to represent Palin has challenged the authority of state lawmakers to look into ethics questions. Instead, the lawyer, Thomas V. Van Flein, contends the probe should be handled by the state Personnel Board, which he says is “statutorily mandated” to handle ethics cases. The three-member Personnel Board is appointed by the governor.
Van Flein is also making it difficult for the retired state prosecutor charged with conducting the probe to interview Palin. Van Flein said the investigation is “bad timing” in the middle of a presidential campaign.
Palin had initially denied that she had pressured Monegan to fire Wooten. She said she had simply raised questions about Wooten, relaying the allegation that he made a death threat against her father.
But later this summer, she acknowledged becoming aware that her husband, Todd Palin, and several members of her administration had made calls about Wooten to various state officials. In a TV interview in July, Todd Palin confirmed he had talked with Monegan, but said he was just “informing” him about Wooten, not pressuring him.
A four-page backgrounder put out Monday by the McCain/Palin campaign says that Todd Palin, and members of Palin’s staff had made inquiries “about the appropriate Department of Public Safety procedures for dealing with someone they considered a dangerous person and rogue trooper.”
Monegan, however, believes that his firing in July was related to his refusal to remove Wooten. He also turned over several emails that he said he received from Palin about Wooten.
The hiring of Van Flein, an attorney with the Anchorage law firm of Clapp, Peterson, Van Flein, Tiemessen & Thorsness, apparently occurred two weeks ago, but was disclosed Friday by the Legislature’s investigating committee.
His work started Aug. 21, and he is being paid $185 an hour, lower than his usual rate, to represent Palin and others in the governor’s office, according to the Anchorage Daily News. He is authorized to spend up to $95,000.
Van Flein has represented the Palin family in the past as a private attorney, according to a McCain aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
But the lawyer himself declined to verify that citing attorney-client privilege. “Did I know the Palins before the state hired me? Yes,” he told The Associated Press.
“The governor of every state gets legal counsel, and this attorney is part of a weeks-old effort to provide this governor defense in a series of outlandish, politically motivated charges,” said senior McCain adviser Tucker Eskew. “It is a matter of her job and is not recent, and it is not related to her selection on the McCain-Palin ticket.”
Here is the affadavit filed by Van Flein requesting the inquiry be handled by the state Personnel Board. Here is his press release about it.
Fred ‘Hollywood’ Davis shapes McCain ads, convention script
Advertising guru Fred Davis III left the John McCain campaign last year when it was running low on funds and getting nowhere in the polls.
But the man they call “Hollywood” rejoined the McCain team in May as creative director.
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And for the last few days, he’s been backstage at the Republican National Convention, altering and compressing the script to reflect concern about Hurricane Gustav.
As it turned out, Gustav did not strike New Orleans with the anticipated force, but Davis was still left with the job of managing what had become a shorter convention.
He also has been working on a video introducing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain’s surprise pick as his vice-presidential running mate. The video, to be shown today, will be narrated by the actor Jon Voight.
Davis was familiar with Palin, having produced ads for her successful 2006 gubernatorial campaign.
But this time around, he has had to deal with the attention generated by the announcement that Palin’s oldest daughter, Bristol, is pregnant and unmarried.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Davis is a somewhat unconventional figure at the convention, where the suits generally wear suits.
“Mr. Davis – with his feathered and graying long hair, jeans and black linen shirt and nickname ‘Hollywood’ – could be mistaken for a band member of his friend Joe Cocker.”
A native of Oklahoma, Davis, 56, dropped out of college and took over his father’s three-man advertising agency when the elder Davis died.
He grew the company that became Davis & Matos, Inc., eventually moving it to California and renaming it Strategic Perception Inc.
The company has had a wide variety of corporate clients including The Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookie Company and the Associated Funeral Directors Service Corporation.
In 1994, Davis took on his first political campaign, helping his uncle, Republican James Inhofe, win election to the U.S. Senate from Oklahoma.
Davis and his company have since worked on many Republican campaigns, including the 2004 re-election of George W. Bush and the 2006 re-election of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
His campaign ads are sometimes marked by humor and/or pointed satire.
In 2002, he helped Sonny Perdue become governor of Georgia by creating an ad that suggested Perdue’s opponent, the incumbent governor, was a giant rat roaming the state.
Davis is also adept at suggesting an opponent’s strength is a liability, as in the Obama “celebrity” ad that tries to undercut the enormous attention drawn by Obama in Europe.
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