Sen. John McCain’s campaign on Tuesday distanced its foreign policy adviser from a longtime Republican fundraiser who paid the adviser $130,000 when he was a lobbyist.
The payments by Texas businessman Stephen Payne to McCain adviser Randy Scheunemann, ending in 2006, were largely for lobbying Congress and executive branch agencies on energy issues, according to records filed with the Senate.
McCain’s presidential campaign says that Scheunemann did not lobby McCain on any issue relating to Payne, who is caught up in a controversy over whether he sought to sell White House access to a prospective business client.
How does McCain claim to be a different type of politician that can bring about change when his campaign continues to churn out more stories like these that remind us all of same old-same old? If McCain really cared about campaign finance and ethics reform, why would he permit such an individual to be so closely linked to him?
One of McCain’s main arguments about why he should be President and not Senator Obama is that his long experience in Washington has given him better judgment. Between Scheunemann and Phil Gramm, McCain has shown a strong lack of judgment regarding those who would have high level cabinet positions in a McCain administration.

With each passing day, John McCain proves himself to be the ultimate empty suit –nothing more than Fred Thompson with a war record — and the poster child for hack politicians.
As for McCain’s judgment and character, I refer you to his latest statement: “It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.â€
This shameful, despicable statement tells me that McCain is in the swift-boat mold of his unprincipled Republican colleagues who will say anything to win a campaign.
“My friends,” he’s not fit to be president.
It’s clear that the “Straight-Talk Express” has gone off the rails. We’re seeing the McCain campaign in free fall.
He either lied about, or doesn’t understand the chronology of the Anbar Awakening and the Surge — the very centerpiece of his campaign!
He has confused Sunnis and Shia.
He referred to the “Iraq-Afghanistan border,” when in fact the two countries are not immediate neighbors.
In desperation, he has accused Obama (!) of being responsible for the high price of gasoline. That’s pure nonsense.
And he has accused him of being willing to lose the war in Iraq in order to win the election. That’s an outrageous and disgusting personal attack by the man who promised to run an honorable campaign.
So much for McCain, the man of experience and character.
2008 (like 1968, 1980, 1992 etc.) will be a change election. Experience will not help McCain because the voters have seen enough of what presently constitutes our federal government.
McCain’s only hope will be that people trust him over Obama to lead us in wartime. But when he consistently confuses national security issues, how will anyone feel confident in his abilities to lead?
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