One Time Reformer Taps Big Donors

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) advocated limits on "soft money" in politics, but many in his presidential campaign are the fundraisers who put together such donations. (By Johannes Simon -- Getty Images)

The big moneymen gravitating to McCain are politically pragmatic. They may not always agree with him, but they say they admire the Arizona senator for his work on campaign finance reform, his Vietnam War record, his support of Bush on Iraq and his recent campaigning for GOP candidates.

"He did things for our country that very few people I know would have had the courage to do," said Brian Ballard, a Florida lobbyist and longtime fundraiser for former Florida governor Jeb Bush who signed on this month to raise money for McCain.

Ballard said most of the big-money players he knows are not fazed by McCain's attacks on the political-money and lobbying systems, calling it more of an issue for consultants who make their living off big donations.

"I myself don't mind him calling out lobbyists when they've done something bad," Ballard said.

Lobbyists have been a favorite target of McCain the reformer, who proposed legislation requiring so-called grass-roots groups that organize average citizens into lobbying forces to disclose their financial backers.

But McCain the candidate switched positions and last month voted against that disclosure requirement after influential GOP groups such as Focus on the Family and National Right to Life strongly opposed the idea. McCain also hired as his campaign manager one of the grass-roots-lobbying industry's key consultants, Bush strategist Terry Nelson.

"When the senator heard from legitimate public-interest organizations in January of last year that a provision in the legislation would unfairly penalize them for Jack Abramoff's behavior, he agreed and withdrew his support for the provision at that time," Salter explained, referring to the lobbyist in prison for fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy.

In December, Sen. Trent Lott (Miss.), a darling of GOP conservatives and lobbyists, acted as a surrogate for McCain at a fundraising meeting with a group of lobbyists at a Capitol Hill hotel. McCain's political action committee has collected donations -- capped at $5,000 -- from several big-name lobbyists, including Loeffler and fellow Bush fundraiser Wayne Berman, whose blue-chip clients frequently have issues pending before Congress and the White House.

"Both Wayne Berman and Tom Loeffler are longtime supporters of the Republican Party, President Bush and Senator McCain," Salter said. "Senator McCain is pleased to have their support."

Ed Rogers, one of Washington's most influential GOP lobbyists and strategists, said the embrace of McCain is not surprising. "Lobbyists are the ultimate pragmatists, and they deal with the world as is," said Rogers, who last year gave $5,000 to McCain's political action committee, though he says he has not yet endorsed a candidate.

Perenchio, now a member of McCain's finance committee, funneled more than $1.4 million in soft money to Republican causes in the 1998, 2000 and 2002 election campaigns, often in amounts McCain used to criticize. For one GOP fundraising dinner in the spring of 2001, for example, he donated $250,000. Perenchio has also been a major donor to the 527 groups formed to exploit a loophole in the legislation sponsored by McCain and Feingold.

Taking their name from a little-known provision of the IRS tax code, the groups began raising large donations -- some in the millions of dollars -- and running ads and funding other activities designed to influence the 2004 presidential election. Federal election regulators have refused to rein in the groups and their donations in the past two elections.