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Posted
Thursday, February 21, 2008 3:36 PM
| By
Rachael Larimore
As our resident McCain supporter, I'd be remiss not to weigh in on the strange story in the New York Times about the affair that the presumptive GOP nominee may or may not have had with lobbyist Vicki Iseman (who, as Hanna points out, looks eerily like McCain's wife).
It's entirely fair to report on a candidate's affairs, I agree-throw the information out there and let the electorate decide what to do with it. Same with a candidate's drug use or other nebulous behavior. (Though some harder evidence in this case would be nice.) Such nuggets generally don't affect my support for a politician, but they're not altogether irrelevant. And this doesn't scare me from McCain. No candidate is perfect, and I'm more focused on his record. I don't agree with him on everything, but I agree with him on the issues that are important to me.
Emily B., you brought up the sleaziness of the favors McCain did for Iseman's clients. I think if you look that closely into the career of anyone who's been in the House or Senate for 24 years-even a "reform advocate" like McCain-you could find letters to a government agency or flights on private jets. That's probably one reason we haven't elected a senator or former senator to the White House since Nixon (and he was 16 years removed from a three-year Senate stint by that point). That might be an argument against an "experience" candidate, but if you compare it with Kirk Watson's struggle to name a single accomplishment by Barack Obama, I'd guess it's a wash.
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