Second McCain Campaign Aide Resigns Over Burmese Junta Lobbying Ties
A second high-profile aide to John McCain’s presidential campaign has resigned over Burmese junta lobbying charges, FOX News confirmed on Sunday.
Doug Davenport, McCain’s regional campaign manager for the mid-Atlantic states, reportedly founded the DCI Group’s lobbying practice and supervised a contract with the Burmese military junta in 2002.
“Doug Davenport has resigned from his position with the campaign,” McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said in a statement.
His resignation follows the decision by Doug Goodyear—the man picked by McCain’s campaign to run the 2008 Republican National Convention — to step down after a report that DCI, where Goodyear is chief executive, used to represent the military regime in Burma, renamed Myanmar by the ruling military junta.
“Today I offered the convention my resignation so as not to become a distraction in this campaign. I continue to strongly support John McCain for president, and wish him the best of luck in this campaign,” Goodyear said in a two sentence statement.
The resignation came after Newsweek posted a story online that the company was paid $348,000 in 2002 and 2003 to represent Burma’s junta.
“We respect Mr. Goodyear’s decision, and look forward to the convention in September,” said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign.
Burma suffered a devastating cyclone a week and a half ago. Cyclone Nargis left more than 60,000 people dead or missing, and the U.N. estimates that at least 1.5 million people have been severely affected. Human rights organizations and dissident groups have bitterly criticized the junta for neglecting disaster victims and blocking foreign donations of relief supplies.
Justice Department records covering agents of foreign agents that are required to register with the U.S. government show DCI signed a contract to work to “improve relations between the United States and Myanmar” and to act as the junta’s public relations agent in Washington.
Newsweek said the firm drafted news releases praising Burma’s efforts to curb the drug trade and denouncing claims by the Bush administration that the regime engaged in rape and other abuses.
“It was our only foreign representation, it was for a short tenure, and it was six years ago,” Newsweek quoted Goodyear as saying. The magazine said Goodyear added that the junta’s record in the current cyclone crisis is “reprehensible.”
The Newsweek article also reported that some of Goodyear’s allies worry that worry the choice of Goodyear could fuel perceptions that McCain is surrounded by lobbyists. DCI Group earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients, the report said.
Newsweek also reported DCI has been a pioneer in running “independent” expenditure campaigns by so-called 527 groups, the kind of operations that McCain has denounced in his battle for campaign finance reform.
The convention runs Sept. 1-4 at the Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Good to see some honor without excuses to blame someone else.
follow the mcbush plan: if they don’t agree go to war with them, if they are different go to war with them, if they think our way of life is wrong go to war with them. do what??? we have the CIA report stating they had nothing to do with 911??? that’s ok, lets go to war with them. 80% of the voters say lets get out of iraq and lets stay out of war, say: “who do they think they are the taxpayers, the american public?” the savings and loan could let them have some of that keating money that any person in arizona knows where it is.
McCAIN & CO. STINK……AS DOES OBAMA & CLEENTON.
GO RON PAUL!
The McCain campaign staff seems to be full of lobbyists that are not in the best interest of the United States. Lobbists from EADS (Airbus) are also part of the McCain campaign, one of them is the McCain campaign chief financial officer.
This is quite disturbing that individuals so closely affiliated with our politics would be lobbying for dictators in rogue nations. I’m sure if we looked deeper we’d find more explosive connection. And yet many politicians like Clinton and McCain say that lobbyist are serving the voice of the American people. Seems to continually sound like they are serve the voice of their deep pockets. Lobbying has in essence become a pseudo-government set up by those with money/power American and non-American to dissuade the will of the American people. Yet only one candidate is willing to stop this nonsense!?
Who cares???? is the aide running for president?? last time I checked he wasent
With so many of McCain’s staff made up of lobbiest who are chosen by McCain for high ranking positions, how in the world can we count on him to look out for our interests? Since most Americans don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars I can only assume that when push comes to shove he will look out for Exxon and Haliburtan and Rev. Hagee interests and not ours. Just goes to show that saying you are a rebel or for change doesn’t make it so!