McCain: The original political celebrity

If Barack Obama gave new meaning to the term “political celebrity,” then John McCain helped define it.

He emerged as the most popular Republican in Hollywood following his 2000 presidential primary defeat, winning more screen time than the rest of Congress combined. McCain made cameos in “Wedding Crashers” and “24,” saw his memoir turned into a popular biopic on A&E, and appeared more than 30 times on late night comedy shows.

So this week, when McCain cast Obama’s celebrity as a disqualifier, it seemed like a curious turn.

Just one day before McCain released an advertisement interspersing pictures of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears with footage of Obama addressing 200,000 people in Berlin, actor Jon Voight told Variety that McCain had “many great, intelligent, talented Academy-winning actors standing by, awaiting a major press conference to show their support.”

“[The ad] is a bit ironic given that McCain has been the most pop-culture savvy Republican candidate in quite some time,” said Ted Johnson, managing editor of Variety and editor of the blog Wilshire and Washington, which monitors the intersection of celebrity and politics.

The McCain campaign continued to hammer at Obama on Friday with the release of a very sarcastic Web ad that at one point cuts to an image of Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea before posing the question: “Barack Obama may be The One, but is he ready to lead?”

The Spears-Hilton ad hits a similar note, describing Obama as “the biggest celebrity in the world.”

The Republican National Committee piled on, launching a Web site Friday called Who Said It? Celebrity Edition that features a multiple-choice quiz in which people must identify whether Obama or a celebrity made certain, often vacuous, statements.

It’s a striking line of attack for McCain, who’s accepted without complaint the “celebrity” epithet from journalists for four decades.

“John’s been a celebrity ever since he was shot down,” former McCain strategist John Weaver told The Atlantic earlier this week, “whatever that means.”

Yet, like the way fresh starlets push aside aging actors, political hot shots from years past (think former President Bill Clinton, often described as a “rock star” in his day) have been overshadowed by the newest crop of talent in this election year. This sort of churning is typical during presidential campaigns, said Matt Bennett, communications director for Gen. Wesley Clark’s 2004 presidential campaign and co-founder of Third Way, a progressive policy group.

“McCain was famous for a politician,” Bennett said. “Obama has almost transcended that, and has become famous as a famous person which is why they are comparing him to Paris Hilton.”

Since 2000, Bennett went on, McCain has enjoyed “enough fame and authority and celebrity” to aid candidates and organizations with ads that simply involve him speaking into a camera.

McCain started on the public stage with the pedigree of a family whose name graces a naval ship and a Mississippi National Guard training center.

With his father serving as a top admiral, John McCain first became a household name when he was captured in Vietnam, and even more of one upon his release five years later. The New York Times featured him on its front page. He wrote an acclaimed 12,000-word, first person account for U.S. News and World Report. President Richard Nixon feted him.

Hollywood warmed to him in 2000 as he ran against one of its least favorite people, George W. Bush. He endeared himself with liberals, including Warren Beatty, by taking unconventional stances for a Republican presidential candidate, such as favoring campaign finance reform and challenging the Christian right. His open-door approach with journalists made him the darling of the media elite.

“You can definitely makes the case that McCain stands out among Republicans for his associations with Hollywood and his celebrity status,” Johnson said. “The fact that he was in ‘Wedding Crashers,’ it underscores the fact that he does have a lot of friends in the entertainment industry that Bush can’t claim.”

In the years that followed, he became a near-regular on the late-night comedy circuit, appearing eight times on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," 12 times on the "Late Show with David Letterman," 10 times on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," and three times on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," according to imdb.com.

He hosted "Saturday Night Live" in 2002. "Faith of My Fathers" pulled in 3.7 million viewers on A&E in 2005, making it the network’s most popular program in over a year. He appeared on “24” in 2006.

And he made a brief cameo in “Wedding Crashers,” offering congratulations to the father of the bride, a senator played by Christopher Walken.

As a then-likely Republican presidential candidate, McCain’s appearance in the film stirred a mini-controversy when the Drudge Report labeled it a “boob raunch fest.” But McCain laughed it off — during a visit on Leno’s show.

“In Washington, I work with boobs every day,” McCain joked.

McCain has received support this year from boldfaced names such as SNL creator Lorne Michaels and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. But the Republican's circle is far smaller than the one around Obama, and less robust than 2000, when lifelong Democrats including Harrison Ford and Michael Douglas signed checks for McCain.

So far, Obama has raised $4.7 million from the movie, television and music industry, while McCain has received $815,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan campaign finance group.

A liberal blog noted this week that the McCain campaign had scrubbed its website of an Associated Press story from last year that described him as a “political celebrity.”

Dismissing claims circulating in the liberal blogosphere, McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said the article was removed as part of routine housecleaning of the website several weeks ago.

But Rogers skirted the question Friday of whether he considered his candidate a political celebrity.

“John McCain is a widely respected and admired political leader in our country and the world,” Rogers said, adding that Obama is in a “different stratosphere.”

“Who else could get 200,000 people in Berlin? Those aren’t voters. Those are fans.”

The campaign, he added, was not attempting to make “celebrity” a pejorative term. “It is not a dirty word,” he said of the spot that juxtaposes Obama with Britney and Paris, calls him “the biggest celebrity in the world” and then asks, “but is he ready to lead?”

“We are celebrating his fame,” Rogers went on, “and the reality that this guy has entered Tom Cruise-type of fame.”

Bennett said the heightened sensitivity around "celebrity" was unlikely to cause a full-scale pull back from the entertainment industry by either candidate.

Indeed, on Friday night in Panama City, Fla., McCain basked in the glow of Nashville — not Hollywood — as country singer John Rich of the duo Big and Rich hosted a "Country First" concert for the presumptive nominee and debuted a new song: "Raising McCain."

Obama’s star even shines in Nashville, though — last year “Big” Kenny Alphin, the other half of the act, contributed $2300 to the Obama campaign.

Jeffrey Ressner contributed to this story.

Obama backs away from McCain's debate challenge

WASHINGTON - Democratic candidate Barack Obama on Saturday backed away from rival John McCain's challenge for a series of joint appearances, agreeing only to the standard three debates in the fall.

In May, when a McCain adviser proposed a series of pre-convention appearances at town hall meetings, Obama said, "I think that's a great idea." In summer stumping on the campaign trail, McCain has often noted that Obama had not followed through and joined him in any events.

Obama's reversal on town hall debates is part of a play-it-safe strategy he's adopted since claiming the nomination and grabbing a lead in national polls. Advisers to the Illinois senator, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss strategy, say Obama is reluctant to take chances or give McCain a high-profile stage now that Obama's the front-runner.

On Saturday, in a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said the short period between the last political convention and the first proposed debate made it likely that the commission-sponsored debates would be the only ones.

"We've committed to the three debates on the table," campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Saturday in an interview. "It's likely they will be the three appearances by the candidates this fall."

Asked by The Associated Press if that meant Obama would not agree to any other debates, Psaki said, "We're not saying that." She said the McCain campaign had rejected Obama's proposal for two joint town hall meetings.

McCain's campaign disparaged Obama for backing off. McCain has not yet formally agreed to the commission-sponsored debates, but the McCain campaign says he plans to.

"We understand it might be beneath a worldwide celebrity of Barack Obama's magnitude to appear at town hall meetings alongside John McCain and directly answer questions from the American people, but we hope he'll reconsider," spokesman Brian Rogers said.

The first debate planned by the commission is set for Sept. 26 in Oxford, Miss., three weeks after the Republican National Convention concludes Sept. 4. The Democratic convention is scheduled for Aug. 25-28.

The other presidential debates are set for Oct. 7 and Oct. 15 and the vice presidential debate for Oct. 2.

A day after Obama clinched the Democratic nomination in early June, McCain challenged Obama to a series of 10 town hall meetings. The candidates' campaigns began negotiations, telling reporters that they agreed in spirit to joint appearances.

When the idea first came up from the McCain campaign that May, Obama was still battling Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Obama said then: "Obviously, we would have to think through the logistics on that, but ... if I have the opportunity to debate substantive issues before the voters with John McCain, that's something that I am going to welcome."

In June, Plouffe had suggested Obama-McCain meetings more along the lines of the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates. During Abraham Lincoln's Senate campaign against Stephen Douglas in 1858, the candidates met seven times across Illinois. One spoke for an hour, the other for an hour and a half, and the first was allowed a half-hour rebuttal.

Plouffe said Saturday that Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois will be Obama's representative in further discussions with the commission.

The Commission on Presidential Debates, established in 1987, sponsors and produces debates featuring the presidential and vice presidential candidates of the major parties. The nonprofit and nonpartisan organization has sponsored all the presidential debates since 1988.

Private equity fears criticism if Romney VP

If John McCain selects Mitt Romney as his running mate, Romney's former colleagues in the private equity industry expect they are in for a bloody campaign that will paint them all as job-killing fat cats eager to stomp the little guy to make a quick buck.

Before he was elected governor of Massachusetts, Romney sat atop the private equity world where major investors routinely buy troubled companies, revamp them — often in part through layoffs — and then sell them off for huge profits. Romney founded the private equity firm Bain Capital, which he headed for 15 years, during which time he's estimated to have made about $250 million.

Last year, congressional Democrats targeted the private equity sector for insults and tax increases. With a Romney vice presidential nod, those charges will go national.

"There's no doubt it will come up," says Mark Mellman, a key strategist for Massachusetts Democrat Sen. John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. "This is an economy where people are on edge about things like downsizing and getting laid off and here's a guy who has wielded that knife."

The Republican primary offered a glimpse of what could be ahead for a possible McCain-Romney ticket and the industry.

"I believe most Americans want their next president to remind them of the guy who they work with, not the guy who laid them off," Republican rival Mike Huckabee frequently cracked.

In December, the Democratic National Committee slammed Romney for closing U.S. factories, investing in Iran, and using Cayman Islands tax shelters.

The McCain campaign declined to comment on the vice presidential selection process, or on Romney's past.

Former Romney staffers argue that the primary attacks largely failed because Romney created thousands more jobs then he eliminated over the course of his private sector career.

For almost two years, the Service Employees International Union has run a campaign against the private equity industry, framing the firms as microcosms of the country's income inequities. The union argues that the firms fire workers and destroy local communities while raking in billions, all with little government oversight.

The SEIU is already slamming McCain for his links to Henry Kravis, head of private equity powerhouse KKR, who has raised at least $500,000 for the McCain campaign.

"You can spin, you can jive, you're helping the buyout guys," sang SEIU organizers to the tune of Dancing Queen at a protest in front of McCain headquarters last month. "CEOs want more green, you are the Loophole King."

The union has also targeted several buyouts completed by Bain under Romney that resulted in layoffs, closures and bankruptcies.

"For all of his the positive tension he's gotten for his turnaround accomplishments, there is a dark underbelly that feds into a lot of the anger out there in the work force," says Democratic strategist Dan Gerstein. "The likely scenario is that the unions quarterback that line of attack."

Private equity lobbyists have begun to prepare their clients to face increased attention in the event of a McMitt ticket.

First, they note, Romney's Bain story is not all bad.

During Romney's time at the helm, Bain shifted from making venture capital-type investments to buyouts.
While some of Bain's investments in the Romney era — including investments in Domino's and Staples — created tens of thousands of new jobs, others resulted in layoffs.

During his primary run, Romney painted his Bain-era self as a venture capitalist investing in creative startup companies.

"I was responsible for a firm that invested other peoples' money," he said in South Carolina last winter. "So I'd listen to new ideas and try to pick the ones I thought were the most innovative."

Industry lobbyists, though, fear Romney's nomination would highlight tax and wealth inequality issues that first started to attract attention last summer, soon after the $4.75 billion initial public offering of Blackstone that made billions for its investors.

Congress quickly proposed measures targeting the special tax treatment of private equity funds and their managers. One particularly controversial proposal would more than double taxes on a portion of investment managers' income known as carried interest.

That proposal passed the House but eventually died in the Senate under opposition from Republicans and the business community, who argued it would impact a huge number of businesses that use a similar payment structure.

The debate has died down over the past few months, as energy prices and the housing crisis became more pressing concerns. The announcement this week that KKR would go public drew almost no comment from the political world.

But if Romney gets the nomination, private equity would attract renewed attention and a national audience would soon receive a tutorial on carried interest and billion dollar windfalls.

The attacks would probably mirror those made by Sen. Edward M. Kenney (D-Mass.) when Romney made a bid for his seat in 1994.

In 1992, Bain bought a controlling interest in Ampad, a Marion, Ind.-based paper products company, and then proceeded to lay off 200 workers and cut the remaining employees' salaries and benefits.

The employees responded with a strike, during which some trailed Romney across the state and protested at his campaign events.

Kennedy labeled his opponent a "robber baron" and flooded the airways with ads featuring people who were laid off from businesses Romney had purchased saying things like, "You're not creating jobs, you're taking them away from us to put money in your pocket."

Voters would likely see similarly devastating ads this fall if Romney joined the McCain ticket.

"It's not about him being rich, it's about how he got rich. He got rich at the expense of a lot of people," said Mellman. "And if this becomes a matter of national debate, it can't help the industry."

Va. congressman vetted as possible McCain veep

RICHMOND, Va. - John McCain's campaign has asked Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor for personal documents as the Republican presidential candidate steps up his search for a running mate, The Associated Press has learned.

Cantor, 45, the chief deputy minority whip in the House, has been mentioned among several Republicans as a possible running mate for McCain. A Republican familiar with the conversations between Cantor and the McCain campaign said Cantor has been asked to turn over documents, but did not know specifically what records were sought.

The individual spoke on the condition of anonymity because neither the McCain campaign nor Cantor's office wishes to discuss the running mate selection process.

Cantor through a spokesman declined to comment. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said the campaign would have "no comment on anything related to the vice presidential issue."

With just weeks till the national conventions, McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama have knuckled down in their search for vice presidential candidates. They have been regularly huddling behind closed doors with a small circle of advisers to examine the backgrounds and records — and weigh the political implications — of at least a handful of prospects.

Cantor has been a visible McCain surrogate for weeks, appearing frequently on cable news outlets chiefly to promote McCain's positions on domestic and economic issues. He has been a forceful critic of Democrat Barack Obama's resistance to lifting the federal ban on oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Cantor has strong support among the party's conservatives, perhaps comforting a segment of the GOP base that has been reluctant to embrace McCain, who has often been at odds with members of his own party on several issues, including a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, federal funds for embryonic stem cell research and campaign finance reform.

Since his four terms in the Virginia House of Delegates starting in the early 1990s, Cantor has been part of the anti-tax wing of Virginia's Republican Party. His longtime advocacy for business and corporate interests in the General Assembly earned Cantor the derisive nickname "Overdog" from Democrats in Richmond.

Cantor is Jewish and is among Israel's most avid congressional supporters. His addition to the ticket could help the GOP win over Jewish votes this year. If McCain wins, Cantor would become the first Jewish vice president.

Cantor also would provide youth to the ticket as McCain turns 72 later this month.

Cantor could provide McCain with an important asset in Virginia, a state that last backed a Democrat for president in 1964 but which both parties are now targeting as a battleground.

That both McCain and Obama are considering Virginians as running mates underscores the importance of a conservative southern state in the back yard of Washington where Democrats have found success since 2001.

While the state's 13 electoral votes don't place Virginia among electoral giants such as California, Texas or Pennsylvania, picking off a state in the solidly Republican South could tip a close race to the Democrats.

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine is personally close and ideologically in sync with Obama and has been mentioned as a possible running mate along with Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Joe Biden of Delaware and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

Among others believed to be getting close looks from McCain: Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Ohio Rep. Rob Portman for McCain.

Cantor's drawback is his obscurity despite his leadership position in the House.

He won his seat in Congress in 2000 from one of Virginia's most conservative House districts. No Democratic challenger has come close to defeating him since, including actor Ben Jones, who played the Cooter character on the "Dukes of Hazzard" television comedy series. He faces a longshot challenge this year from Anita Hartke, the daughter of former Democratic Sen. Vance Hartke of Indiana.