Viewpoint

In the past week, the strengthening McCain campaign shook off what seemed to be poorly researched allegations of an affair eight years ago with a female lobbyist, printed in a February 21 New York Times article examining his current campaign ethics, and came back with more momentum than ever.McCain went from being the maverick distrusted by the conservative base who succeeded in advantageously crowded primaries to being the darling of Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the remaining Reagan Coalition not charmed by Huckabee.

The enemy of his enemy seems to be his friend still in American politics, and conservatives everywhere supported McCain in his battle with the The New York Times.

The article The New York Times rushed to press after a nearly four-month gestation period may lack concrete evidence of an affair, but it raised more important and interesting issues than who slept with a 71-year-old war hero.

The article took an unnecessarily low blow at the candidate with allegations of adultery, but the immediate effect of the allegations on McCain's campaign pale in comparison to the real concrete proof of McCain's involvement with lobbyists.

Extramarital affairs can and have killed campaigns, and for a party that claims to champion family values, an unfaithful candidate in his second marriage may be too much to handle.

But instead of worrying who is taking off McCain's pants, maybe we should be worried about who is paying for them.

After a loose involvement with the Keating Five savings and loan scandal that cost taxpayers billions, McCain supposedly cleaned up his politics.

Co-author of the 2002 McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Act, McCain is tough on soft money in a way that few other politicians seem to be. Appearance and reality, however, can be disturbingly different, especially in Washington.

According to the Washington Post, John McCain has at least 59 federal lobbyists working for his campaign, more than anyone who was in the race at any point. These lobbyists include Rick Davis, a partner at Davis Manafort Inc., who has lobbied for SBC, Verizon, ATT and is McCain's campaign manager and Tom Loeffler, a Chairman of The Loeffler Group who lobbies for Toyota and pharmaceutical companies and is McCain's chief fundraising official.

Having a staff with a few minor connections, it unfortunately comes as less than a surprise that the author of the greatest campaign finance reform act in history has accepted over $422,376 from lobbyists, almost five times as much as Barack Obama.

His efforts against the tobacco and other special interest groups have been a great service to his country, but maybe he should separate himself from other, slightly less deadly lobbyists. The involvement of communications lobbyists in his campaign and the alleged presence of Vicki Iseman, who is, if not an adulteress, still a lobbyist for communications in direct contrast to the McCain-Feingold Finance Act.

Drafting a law against soft money is admirable on paper, but says little if your campaign takes private lobbyists' donations.

News of any candidate's involvement with lobbying activists is disturbing, whether literally or figuratively in bed with them. It may be undeniable that McCain is the most experienced and connected presidential candidate in the race, but experience and connections are not positive qualifications for a president of the people if they are the connections and experience of a senator of the lobbyists.

In the first Bush administration, Americans were swindled by crooked investments in the savings and loan scandal; now we are faced with another crooked investment scandal, this time with mortgages.

In a year of pivotal electoral importance, it would be a mistake to elect a politician who was surely involved in the old games and might be playing the new ones.