INDIANAPOLIS — Senator John McCain declared the battle over on Friday morning, but by then his lieutenants believed he had already won the war.
Conservative radio talk show hosts who had long reviled Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential candidate from Arizona, had rallied to his defense. Bloggers on the right said that this could be the start of a new relationship. Most telling, Mr. McCain’s campaign announced Friday afternoon that it had just recorded its single-best 24 hours in online fund-raising, although it declined to provide numbers.
Both sides traced the senator’s sudden fortunes to an unusual source, The New York Times, which on Wednesday night published on its Web site an article about Mr. McCain’s close ties to a female lobbyist who did business before the senator’s committee. That evening, two of the senator’s top advisers, Mark Salter and Steve Schmidt, flew to an emergency strategy session in Toledo, Ohio, where Mr. McCain was campaigning.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/us/politics/23mccain.html?hp
The story itself was a non-story. However McCain blatantly lied in his explanation
Is now the story.
"While the campaign said Thursday that Mr. McCain never spoke to
anyone from Paxson or Ms. Iseman’s lobbying firm before sending those
letters to the commission, an article posted Friday on Newsweek’s Web
site said Mr. McCain had previously acknowledged first speaking to Mr.
Paxson. Recounting that conversation, Mr. McCain testified in the
deposition, “I said I would be glad to write a letter asking them to
act.”
The Washington Post reported Friday on its Web site that
Mr. Paxson acknowledged in an interview that he had met with Mr. McCain
to discuss the letters before they were sent and that Ms. Iseman was
probably at the meeting.
In three interviews with The Times
since December, Mr. Paxson has provided varying accounts about the
letters. In the first, he said Ms. Iseman was involved in the drafting
of them and had lobbied Mr. McCain. He later said he could not recall
who had been involved."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/us/politics/23lobby.html?_r=1&bl&ex=12...