Despite a healthy fundraising haul last month, presidential candidate John McCain is still being severely outpaced in the money race by his Democratic opponent, and a fundraiser scheduled on the Republican's behalf next week shows just how far he's willing to go to catch up.
Democrats, though, aren't letting McCain forget that the host of Monday's funraiser -- Christian Right leader Ralph Reed -- was a key player in corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff's money laundering and influence peddling schemes.
"Raising money with Ralph Reed shows that the John McCain who ran in 2000 would have a hard time considering voting for the John McCain we see today. Senator McCain has changed," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) during a conference call Friday. "He's taking advice from Karl Rove and Karl Rove's minions - and now he's adopting Karl Rove and Dick Cheney anything goes style of low road politics."
Critics are taking particular delight in the irony that McCain is now relying on a figure in a scandal that the Arizona Senator himself was instrumental in uncovering. As chairman of the Senate's Indian Affairs Committee, McCain and his staff uncovered myriad instances of Abramoff's efforts to take advantage of tribal clients who retained him to lobby on behalf of casino interests.
"The John McCain who used to go out and try to root out this sort of corruption is now appearing to me to be a desperate candidate who will say anything and raise money anywhere with absolutely anyone to pay for a lot of the false and negative ads that we have seen," said Waxman, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, which also has investigated the Abramoff scandal.
While Waxman said McCain deserves credit for his previous work on the Abramoff investigation, he accused the candidate of abandoning his principles in pursuit of political victory. According to standards McCain laid out for himself at the start of the campaign, Reed should be "completely disqualified" from participating in the campaign, Waxman said on the call, which was sponsored by the Democratic National Committee.
Reed, a former director of the Christian Coalition, interceded with President Bush and White House officials to help some of Abramoff's clients, according to a House committee's investigation in 2006. Reed's public relations firm also received $4.2 million from Abramoff to mobilize Christian voters to fight the opening of casinos that could compete with Abramoff's Indian tribe clients.
After being exposed as a player in the Abramoff scandal, Reed said he regretted his actions.
In an e-mail statement to the Associated Press this week, Reed said, "I take the long view of politics, which is that yesterday's opponent can be tomorrow's friend or ally." He said he suppports the Arizona Republican but holds "no position, title or official role in the McCain campaign and am not seeking one."
The DNC on Thursday released a Web ad criticizing McCain for the Reed fundraiser.
"Most people now see Ralph Reed as a tainted man, raising tainted money," the ad intones. "John McCain sees him as a source of campaign cash."
