Lobby Reform Holds Risks for Obama, McCain

McCain has also become sensitive to the lobbyist issue. In May, his campaign issued a memo asking all staff members to reveal lobbyists ties along with potential conflicts and followed up by purging the staff of anyone who might hurt the campaign's image. Other important staff members like campaign manager Rick Davis and chief strategist Charlie Black have cut their lobbyists ties in recent weeks.

Despite his aggressive actions, McCain hasn't managed to remove the lobbyist controversy from his campaign. McCain relies on former Senator Phil Gramm for economic advice and serves as a co-chair for the campaign. Gramm remains a vice president at UBS (UBS Quote), a Swiss banking giant. A recent expose in Texas Monthly argued that Gramm has direct responsibility for the current subprime crisis. In December of 2000, Gramm inserted a late provision into an 11,000-page government re-authorization bill. The bill halted regulation of credit swaps and aided in accelerating the creation of financial devices leading to the present credit crisis. Furthermore, Gramm was responsible for doing away with Depression-era banking protections, which facilitated the merger of Travelers and Citicorp to become Citigroup (C Quote).

McCain has long walked a fine line on government reform. His original interest in reform came after his involvement in the Keating 5 scandal, involving corruption charges in the Savings and Loan crisis in the late 80s. He resurrected his career by becoming a reformer. This led to his work on campaign finance reform and the creation of the McCain-Feingold Act. The act attempted to limit the role of soft money by independent groups running advertizing. Provisions of the act were recently struck down by the Supreme Court for limiting free speech.

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