Giving Senator McCain the benefit of the doubt...
As most of you who have read this blog know, I worked on Senator McCain's 2000 Presidential run as a strategist. So I was very interested to read today's story in the NYTimes about Senator McCain's supposed ties to and romantic relationship with a lobbyist. Given that my company signed a non-disclosure agreement with Senator McCain, I'm not going to break any news that isn't reported by the Times with what I know but I will say that then, just as I feel now, that I was in the camp that didn't believe that Senator McCain was having a romantic relationship with this lobbyist. I gave him the benefit of the doubt then and nothing in the Times reporting changes my view. I will say that yes, on a strategist level, we did talk about their friendship and how it might be perceived from the outside. Some of us didn't think there was a "romantic" relationship while others thought there might be. That being said, the APPEARANCE of such a relationship was something that we talked about and were concerned with.
Politics is all about appearances but in this instance, I believe this is a non-story that the NYTimes decided to put out there last night to circumvent any scoop by another outlet.
UPDATE: McCain responds.
UPDATE II: Newsweek has what appears to be a tale of two different McCains in his denial of his involvement with Paxson... McCain's deposition testimony refutes his current story.
Politics is all about appearances but in this instance, I believe this is a non-story that the NYTimes decided to put out there last night to circumvent any scoop by another outlet.
UPDATE: McCain responds.
UPDATE II: Newsweek has what appears to be a tale of two different McCains in his denial of his involvement with Paxson... McCain's deposition testimony refutes his current story.
Comments