Rick Davis

Now that the election is over we start getting a bigger look into the inner workings of the McCain campaign:

Randy Scheunemann, a senior foreign policy adviser to John McCain, was fired from the Arizona senator's campaign last week for what one aide called "trashing" the campaign staff, three senior McCain advisers tell CNN.

One of the aides tells CNN that campaign manager Rick Davis fired Scheunemann after determining that he had been in direct contact with journalists spreading "disinformation" about campaign aides, including Nicolle Wallace and other officials.

"He was positioning himself with Palin at the expense of John McCain's campaign message," said one of the aides.

In contrast, what bad news did we ever hear from the Obama campaign? What "leaked information" from campaign insiders bad talking the campaign did we hear? The answer is none - something that might be a first in presidential politics.

Josh points out this new memo put out by Rick Davis:

Expanding the Field: Obama is running out of states if you follow out a traditional model. Today, he expanded his buy into North Dakota, Georgia and Arizona in an attempt to widen the playing field and find his 270 Electoral Votes. This is a very tall order and trying to expand into new states in the final hours shows he doesn't have the votes to win.

Get that? Because Obama can campaign in very red states, including McCain's own state, that means Obama is in trouble. When this election is over Rick Davis and Mark Penn need to get together and write a book - how to spin shit into bullshit.

If the NYT's reporting about Rick Davis is so wrong, then why is he running?

John McCain campaign manager Rick Davis--under the spotlight because of his work for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--is skipping a Wednesday lunch with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

Do the innocent run, or do they try to prove their innocence? Perhaps someone should ask Rick Davis that question - if he can be found.

So it's not only the New York Times taking McCain's campaign manager to task. Newsweek is also reporting about the $15,000 a month Rick Davis made from Freddie and Fannie up to last month. You can bet we will hear a bunch more crying about the media from the McCain campaign in the coming days. How dare the media do their jobs!!!!

And John McCain does nothing but lie to the American people about it - the same American people expected to bail out these companies.

One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager from the end of 2005 through last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement. The disclosure contradicts a statement Sunday night by Mr. McCain that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had no involvement with the company for the last several years. Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the people said.

They said they did not recall Mr. Davis doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than speak to a political action committee composed of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the coming midterm congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s his firm, Davis & Manafort, was kept on the payroll because of Mr. Davis’s close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who was widely expected by 2006 to run again for the White House.

Mr. Davis took a leave from Davis & Manafort for the duration of the campaign, but as a partner and equity-holder continues to share in its profits.

So even though Davis took a "leave", he still profited from the company. If this isn't criminal, it sure as hell should be. John McCain should also be publicly flogged for this.

McCain has tried so hard to tie Obama to Freddie and Fannie, but guess what? He hasn't looked closely enough at his own campaign:

Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

In all Davis walked away with close to two million for his efforts. I believe we have the making of the latest Obama ad right here, thanks to McCain's total display of hypocrisy.

McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, has sent a very nasty letter to NBC about the claims that McCain may have heard the questions. Sully has the fully letter. So why is the McCain campaign taking such a defensive approach to this? A general reaction to something like this would be "we won't answer such false claims", or something of the sort. By the forceful defense the McCain campaign is launching, it seems like they are trying to hide something, especially considering the fact there is a silence on this from the Obama campaign.

So is McCain trying to hide something? I think this question needs to be pursued.

Also an emailer just wrote:

You fucking LIEbrals are so stupid. I guess John McCain had a large cable running to his limo so he could watch CNN. Give it a break. Your story is week. [sic]

So we are stupid? Perhaps this emailer needs to catch up on technology. I listened to part of the forum in my car, and there wasn't a long black cable running to it. It's called satellite and on Sirius satellite radio, you can listen to CNN on channel 132.

(On a personal note - I usually don't bother with these emailers, but this total ignorance had to be shared.)