5/1/08 Update: I'm not the only one interested in Wes Gullett's adoption of the other baby that Cindy McCain brought home from Bangladesh. Karl Rove spun the story in yesterday's Wall Street Journal.

Can Cindy McCain Really Be That Perfect? - CNN, 3/5/08

For years, the media have allowed the McCains to promote their version of their life stories without question. Take a closer look at the McCain legend and the McCains look, shall we say, less than noble.

Most of us know the McCains adopted a sick baby from Bangladesh and that Cindy McCain was a drug addict. Cindy is almost always asked about both events and her response hardly varies from interview to interview. The media seem quite happy to laud the McCains for adopting the baby and the story of Cindy's drug addiction is portrayed as one of redemption.

The media never, ever put the adoption in the same time frame as Cindy's drug addiction, the Keating Five scandal and John McCain's upcoming 1992 senate campaign but I did.

Let's take a look at the facts.

Sometime in 1991 after the devastating April 29th cyclone in Bangladesh, Cindy McCain spent a month there with her charity, the American Voluntary Medical Team (AVMT). Impulsively, she decided to take two sick infant girls she found in Mother Teresa's orphanage back to the United States with her for medical treatment. One baby had a cleft palate and the other had a heart condition.

The McCains adopted the baby with the cleft palate and named her Bridget. The other baby was adopted by Wes Gullett, Senator McCain's administrative assistant, who named the baby "Nikki". Gullett, after managing McCain's 1992 campaign, went on to become Arizona governor Fife Symington's chief of staff, a spot he wouldn't have gotten without help from a grateful John McCain.  

By 1991, Cindy had been addicted to narcotics for at least two years. She stole drugs from her charity and forged prescriptions for four to five hundred pills at a time. Cindy has blamed her drug addiction on two back surgeries and stress from Keating Five scandal. (She was the bookkeeper who "lost" the cancelled checks for thousands of dollars in Keating-related expenses.)

Cindy was also the mother of three young children whose father, the senator, was seldom at home. Neither was she. Before her trip to Bangladesh, Cindy had been in Kuwait City with her charity after Desert Storm ended. After bringing home an infant with special needs, Cindy made even more AMVT trips including ones to Vietnam and Somalia. All in all, she made 55 such trips lasting two weeks or more between 1988 and 1995. For the mathematically challenged, that works out to an average of at least four months away from home every year for seven years. During at least four of those years, she was addicted to drugs.

In 1991, Cindy was in no condition to make decisions about her own life, let alone anyone else's but you'll never hear that from Cindy.

Cindy's version of how the adoption went down:

That wrath was reserved for Bangladesh's minister of health and human welfare, who in 1991 tried to stop her from leaving his country with two sick, abandoned baby girls, one of whom is now the McCains' 15-year-old adopted daughter, Bridget. In Bangladesh for a month with the American Voluntary Medical Team (a nonprofit founded and funded by Cindy), she arrived at Mother Teresa's orphanage in Dhaka to find "160 baby girls who'd been dumped. And I just came upon this one baby — though I absolutely believe Bridget picked me — with a cleft palate so severe that, if it wasn't fixed, she'd die because the nuns couldn't feed her. Each time we returned, I'd hold her, play, marvel even then at her tenacious strength. Finally I wound up getting medical visas for her and another baby with a heart condition — not thinking about adoption — just getting them help."

As she was leaving for the airport, Cindy got a message from the minister of health, "wanting to see me and the babies. I went, and there were all these men talking to each other while I sat with two infants, not understanding a word. Finally one said, 'We can do surgery on this child.' But they had no intention of helping her, and I had to make a plane, so I just slammed my fist on the table, shouting: 'Then do it! What are you waiting for?' They were so stunned, he immediately signed the papers. I don't know where I got the nerve. I could've been arrested."

By the time she landed in the United States, Cindy "realized I couldn't give up this child" and called her husband, telling him about her charges and asking him to meet her at the airport. "When I disembarked carrying Bridget, John said, under his breath, 'Where's she going?' I said, 'To our house.' He laughed. 'I thought so.'" She chuckles. "I brought home a baby without telling him, and he not only took it in stride but loved it, immediately embracing Bridget, who shares John's very dry sense of humor, so she and her dad do pretty well together. If I hadn't taken Bridget out, I think she would have become a prostitute or, worse, died." (The other infant was adopted by another family.) Her children, meanwhile, completely accepted their new sister. "They saw no difference; they never did. Nor did she, until recently."

To be blunt, Cindy had spent a month bopping around Bangladesh whacked out of her skull. If the minister of health heard any of the gossip, he certainly should have had reservations about giving those babies to Cindy McCain. It also sounds like Cindy circumvented normal procedures and to get around the rules, she pitched a hissy fit worthy of a rich US senator's wife. "I could've been arrested" is laughable.

I am somewhat skeptical about Cindy's claim that she landed in the United States and then called her husband to tell him about her two "charges". I'm not familiar with the necessary procedures to obtain medical visas but I suspect that obtaining one in under a month requires the intercession of someone with influence, i.e. Senator McCain.

I'm sure John McCain did meet his wife at the airport when she disembarked carrying a sick infant from a country devastated by a natural disaster. My question is whether McCain had the press in tow that day. Presumably the airport was in Phoenix. I wouldn't be the least surprised if McCain rushed from DC to Phoenix for a photo op and was back in DC the next day.

I don't have access to Arizona newspaper archives so I don't know how Cindy McCain was covered in the local press in 1991. Today, the McCain campaign uses a photo of Cindy with Baby Bridget and Mother Teresa-like woman in campaign literature as evidence of McCain's anti-abortion stance.

I did search the Washington Post archives for 1991 news stories about the McCains.

Here is a sample:

1/5/91 - Senator McCain admits that 1987 meeting with regulators "probably" created the air of impropriety.

1/7/91 - Senator McCain takes his second trip to Vietnam to inquire about MIAs.

2/28/91 - Senator McCain mildy rebuked by Senate Ethics Committee for his role in the Keating Five scandal.

3/14/91 - Senator McCain takes a three-day tour of Gulf Region after Desert Storm.

6/14/91 - Senator McCain invites lobbyists to a fundraiser.

7/1/91 - Widely syndicated columnist Jack Anderson writes about Cindy McCain's charitable mission in the Gulf Region. Text of the column not available.

8/27/91 - Senator McCain's ratings soar from 16% in January to 40%.

Insight into Cindy McCain's penchant for self-promotion comes from entries in Tom Gosinski's private journal published in the Phoenix News in 1994. From September 1991 to January 1993 when he was fired, Tom Gosinski was the AMVT's director of government and international affair. He was the one who alerted the DEA about Cindy forging presecriptions and he filed a wrongful termination lawsuit which caused Cindy's drug addiction to become public knowledge.

From Gosinki's journal:

August 14, 1992: Work started off at a relatively normal pace this morning. And then--Kathy received a call from Royal Norman at Ch 3 regarding a possible AVMT trip to Somalia. Before Kathy informed me of her conversation with Royal she told Cindy and Cindy jumped all over the issue. Now Cindy wants to airlift a load of supplies to Somalia and use Ch 3 to get the coverage she so desperately goes after. I think the whole idea is crazy as we have so much to do with the Navajos but Cindy seems intent on making it happen.

August 28, 1992: Work has been crazy--Cindy decided we should take a load of supplies to the Miami area to assist in the Hurricane Andrew relief efforts. It would be simple to complete the task if Cindy would not interfere with the rest of us doing our jobs, however, she is constantly stirring things up.

We are also contemplating a trip to Somalia--Mark Salter in John McCain's Washington office has stated that the State Department and the Department of Defense believe it is not safe to travel to Somalia or the northern regions of Kenya. Cindy insists that we are going to go on the trip and that it may be wise for us to pack guns.

She is absolutely crazy--I don't know how to load a gun let alone shoot one. . . .

September 2, 1992: This past week at AVMT has certainly been a challenge. All of us that work for Cindy have been asked to put in extended hours at night and on the weekend and have not even received a thank you. Cindy is the most demanding and thankless person I have ever met.

September 3, 1992: Work is crazy as usual. The trip to Florida on Monday is on schedule--we are now traveling as a cleanup crew in blue hospital scrubs. I questioned wearing scrubs but Cindy insisted that the 'visual' is important, so--we are going to rummage through the rubble of Hurricane Andrew in scrubs. [Cindy wear blue scrubs in the campaign photo I linked to above. - Mrs P.]

Whatever . . . Per Mrs. McCain the AVMT schedule for the next couple of weeks is as follows: Miami cleanup from September 7 through September 11; Navajo Nation parade September 12; and depart for Somalia on September 13. Cindy must think that we have a staff of 20 as she has certainly not sat down, looked at a calendar and rationally thought about what she is suggesting we accomplish. . . .

September 29, 1992: Regardless of what happens with Cindy McCain, it is time for me to get out of AVMT. I have so little respect for Cindy and her objectives--she has made AVMT a media event--that even under the best of circumstances I do not think this organization merits existence. . . .

January 11, 1993: . . . It is evident to me that AVMT is in serious need of an organizational change. . . . Our shot gun approach to providing medical care has minimal impact when a focused approach on a specific area or type of care could significantly impact the target constituency. . . .

Reading Gosinski's journal, I am becoming more convinced that the AMVT was a vanity operation set up to promote the McCains'image. Really, what could a tiny little operation do in a couple of weeks in Miami? Or Somalia, for that matter? The AVMT's 990s filed with the IRS, if available, could give us an idea about the size of the operation and how money was spent.

In his journal, Gosinski also gives us a glimpse into the backstory of Cindy's drug addiction:

October 2, 1992: Well, it is done. Last night Jim and Smitty [Cindy's parents]confronted Cindy regarding her dependency to prescription drugs and she admitted to her addiction. I understand that she told the Hensleys her addiction was rooted in her unhappiness--her marriage--and that she took the pills to mask her depression. The Hensleys told Cindy they knew she had a problem because of her severe mood swings and her change in character. They also said her meanness towards others was not excusable and must stop. . . .

To this day, Cindy claims that her husband had no idea about her drug addiction until she fessed up.

As far as I know, one question about Cindy's drug addiction has never been satisfactorily answered. Was she treated for addiction in 1991 and 1992 or did she lie to the DEA investigators?

From the Phoenix News:

Although she told reporters she went into a residential drug treatment program earlier this year, she told investigators she had treatment during 1991 and 1992. Whom did she lie to--investigators or reporters?

(Crossposted at Bleeding Heartland)

Highly likely in my estimation. A number of signs indicate that Rastetter has been quietly gearing up for a campaign for quite awhile. His involvement in Iowa Future Fund, the shady 501(c)(4) that ran anti-Culver ads, was my first clue. (I posted about Rastetter and IFF/IPP in the Bleeding Heartland here.)

Another clue was that someone privately registered "brucerastter.com" and "brucerastetter.org" in early December 2007. 

An even bigger clue was that Rastetter hired Nicholas T. "Nick" Ryan in January 2007. Ryan had just come off a stint as campaign manager for Jim Nussle's failed gubernatorial bid.

Bruce Rastetter is CEO of  Hawkeye Energy Holdings, Iowa's largest ethanol producer and the third largest in the nation. In September, the Cyclone Conservative commented that "a Rastetter candidacy would also be attractive because Rastetter would carry a tremendous amount of gravitas on renewable fuels and agriculture issues."

CC also speculated that Rastetter's $1.75 million gift to Iowa State University was a political ploy to garner favorable publicity for Rastetter, the candidate. Sounds plausible to me.

If Rastetter runs, Iowa Dems can expect an enormous amount of money to be poured into his campaign, both on and off the books. The  probable reason for the secrecy about Rastetter's intentions is to catch Tom Harkin and Iowa Dems off guard about how stiff Harkin's competition will be in terms of the candidate and money.

Richard O. Jacobson, founder of Jacobson Companies, is chairman of Hawkeye Energy. Jacobson kicked in $50k to Nussle in '06.

Rastetter is very close to Peter M. Castleman, chairman of J. H. Whitney & Company, a private equity firm based in Connecticut. Rastetter is also linked to Whitney partner, Russell Stidololph, through Altenergy LLC. Nick Ryan uses nryan@alternergyllc.com. 

Thomas H. Lee Partners, a Boston private equity firm, has a majority stake in Hawkeye Energy. Expect financial support for Rastetter from the THL partners.

At one point, Rastetter and his partners at J. H. Whitney planned to make a $200 million investment in Iowa wind farms but not much as been mentioned about it recently. I am particularly curious about the wind farms because I read yesterday that T. Boone Pickens is investing $10 billion to create a chain of wind farms that stretches from Texas through the Great Plains. 

If Pickens is behind Rastetter, Iowa Dems are in big trouble. In 2004, Pickens contributed $1 milion to Swift Boat Vets and $2.5 million to Progress For America, another 527, that raised $48 million. The DCI Group, the premier Republican slime shop, was behind PFA.  

I strongly suspect that Iowan, Brian Kennedy, is managing Iowa Future Fund/Iowa Progress Project. Kennedy, a DCI Group exec, is co-founder of PFA. More on this issue to come.  

The brucerastetter.com website lists 400 Locust Street, Suite 330, Des Moines, IA 50309 as its address. I checked the online phonebook and couldn't find an organization specifically listed in Suite 330 but I did find Summit Capital Group at Suite 480.

Summit Capital, a Rastetter company, is the one that employs Nick Ryan. Although Ryan claimed he was first employed by Summit Capital in January 2007, Summit Capital was only registered with the Iowa Secretary of State on February 21, 2007.

The Arag Group, curiously enough, is also listed at 400 Locust St, Suite 480.

That's it for me and Bruce Rastetter for the moment but first a question. If I am right about Rastetter running, did Rastetter violate any campaign laws by raising money without declaring his candidacy? Me, I'd go after Rastetter with a chainsaw if I were an Iowa Dem.   

(Crossposted at Daily Kos)

A couple of weeks ago, the DNC filed an FEC complaint alleging that Freedom's Watch illegally coordinated with the National Republican Congressional Committee on an ad slamming Louisiana Democratic state representative Donald J. Cazayoux on taxes. Cazayoux and and Republican former state representative Woody Jenkins are in a tight congressional race for a May 3 special election. 

Yesterday, American Future Fund, a 501(c)(4) GOP front, issued a press release announcing the results of a poll conducted between April 5-21 in Louisiana. According to pollster, Jan Van Lohuizen, “The survey points to a clear and convincing distrust of liberals in Congress on tax policy.”

Freedom's Watch runs an ad nailing a Louisiana Dem on taxes and American Future Fund (AFF) concurrently runs a poll in Louisiana that concludes taxes are a major issue.

Coincidence? I doubt it.

When I first  read that G. W. Bush's preferred pollster, Jan Van Lohuizen of Voter Consumer Research (VCR), was involved in AFF, I speculated that AFF was going to commission polls for the benefit of Republican candidates as part of an off-the-books campaign financing scheme.

AFF is a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization as defined by the  IRS. The advantage of being a 501(c)(4) is that AFF is not required to disclose the names of its donors and can accept unlimited amounts of money. The disadvantage is that AFF is limited as to what political activities it can engage in.

The IRS:  "The promotion of social welfare does not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office."

What kind of poll did VCR conduct in Louisiana? Hard to say but I doubt if AFF actually paid for the one presented in its press release. The questions are so dumb that anyone who gave it half a minute's thought would suspect that the press release is cover for VCR's real polling in Louisiana.

Take the first question. 515 respondents were asked to select three of 10 issues that were important to him or her. I may be looking at the data incorrectly but the results don't appear to add up.

I took the results by percentage and calculated the number of respondents that ranked each issue.

1. 54% Jobs & the Economy - 515 x .54 = 278.1
2. 48% Education - 515 x .48 = 247.2
3. 39% Health care - 515 x .39 = 200.85
4. 31% The war in Iraq - 515 x .31 = 159.65
5. 21% Taxes - 515 x .21 = 108.15
6. 17% Energy - 515 x .17 = 87.55
7. 14% The environment - 515 x .14 = 72.1
8. 12% Domestic security - 515 x .12 = 61.8
9. 2% Other  - 515 x .02 = 10.3
10. 1% Don’t know - 515 x .01 = 5.15

The total number of issues selected by respondents is 1230.85, rounded to 1231. If all 515 candidates had picked three issues, the total number of issues selected should 1545 (515 x 3). 313 non-responses appear unaccounted for. How scientific is that?

But based on answers to this question, Van Lohuizen concluded that "When combined with concerns about taxes, economic issues are far and away the most salient to the people of Louisiana."

I can combine concerns about health care with concerns about education and conclude that social welfare issues are more salient to the people of Louisiana than the combination of jobs, the economy and taxes. The results can be jiggered any number of ways. 

If an actual poll was conducted with the issues labeled the way they are in the press release, the poll was deliberately conducted to achieve a certain result. Substitute "energy" with the "cost of gas and electricity" and I'm sure more than 17% of respondents would have selected it as an issue of concern. Same for replacing "environment" with "global warming" or "pollution".

Van Lohuizen isn't an idiot but he is a Republican operative who will do or say anything, no matter how stupid, to support the Republican Party and protect his livelihood.

Is the DNC going to get serious about American Future Fund? As I've posted here already, it looks like AFF is being run by the DCI Group and sponsored by the usual cast of right wing billionaires. 

We've got to nip this sort of stuff in the bud if we want to win in November!

(Crossposted at Daily Kos)

American Future Fund is a 501(c)(4) fronted by Republican operatives. To date, American Future Fund has run a television ad supporting Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) and a Roll Call print ad urging the House to pass the Senate version of the FISA bill. Mike Allen of Politico recently reported that American Future Fund staff have been spotted in New Hampshire.

Last week, Peter Stone in the National Journal confirmed  that Karl Rove is actively involved in organizing independent political groups. According to Stone, "One new group being cobbled together includes old associates of Rove from the lobbying and communications firm DCI Group, including Tom Synhorst."

My research uncovered a number of links between American Future Fund, the DCI Group and former Iowa congressman, Jim Nussle. Nussle was appointed Executive Director of the Office of Managment and Budget in September 2007 after a failed gubernatorial bid in 2006 and a brief stint as a consultant to Rudy Giuliani's campaign in early 2007.

I previously posted about American Future Fund (AFF) and its affiliates, Iowa Future Fund (IFF) and Iowa Progress (IPP) in the TPM Cafe here and here.

Known Republican operatives involved in AFF, IFF and IPP:

AFF:

Nicole Schlinger
David Kochel,
Nicholas T. "Nick" Ryan
Alex N. Vogel
Jill Holtzman Vogel
Ben Ginsberg
Edward  T. Tobin III
Philip A. Musser 
Larry McCarthy
Jan Van Lohuizen

IFF/IPP:

David Kochel
Gary Grant
Kathy Pearson

American Future Fund (AFF) and Iowa Future Fund were registered with the Iowa Secretary of State on 8/7/07 by Jessica Young of Holtzman Vogel. <b>Alex N. Vogel</b> and his wife, <b>Jill Holtzman Vogel</b> both served as legal counsel to the Republican Party in various high level capacities.

The names of the AFF directors and officers with one exception have not been publicly disclosed.

<b>Nicole Schlinger</b>, an Iowan, is AFF president. Schlinger, a former executive director of the Iowa Republican Party, is the owner of Capital Resources Inc. which raises money for Republicans and manages events but does not maintain a website. Senator Charles Grassley and former congressmen Jim Nussle and Jim Leach are among Schlinger's clients.

Schlinger and <b>David Kochel</b> registered Mission Control Partners Inc. in Iowa on 2/29/08:

MISSION CONTROL PARTNERS, INC.
Filing date: 2/29/2008

Registered Agent:

Nicole Schlinger
700 E Pleasant St
Brooklyn, IA

Filing #: 359618

Officers, Directors:

NICOLE SCHLINGER
DIRECTOR
700 E PLEASANT ST
BROOKLYN, IA 52211

MARK V HANSON
317 6TH AVE STE 1200
DES MOINES, IA 50309-4195
INCORPORATOR

DAVID KOCHEL
DIRECTOR
319 7TH ST STE 404
DES MOINES, IA 50309

David Kochel acknowledged to Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker that he is involved with AFF in a "limited capacity". Kochel is also the spokesperson for Iowa Future Fund and president of Iowa Progress Project.

Kochel owns and operates JDK Marketing and Public Affairs which specializes in direct mail and print advertising for political campaigns. He was the treasurer of Mitt Romney's Iowa Commonwealth PAC and past executive director of the Iowa and Michigan Republican parties. He was also a direct-mail consultant to Romney's 2002 gubernatorial campaign.

Between 1998 and 2002, Kochel was an executive president of the DCI Group.

Both Schlinger and Kochel were paid consultants to Romney's presidential campaign. Another Romney consultant was Iowan <b>Brian Kennedy</b>, a DCI executive.

In 2004, Kennedy campaigned unsuccessfully in a primary race for an Iowan congressional seat. Kochel was one of his paid consultants as was Holtzman Vogel.

Brian Kennedy is well-known as the co-founder of 527,  Progress For America.

DCI Group partner, <b>Steven P. Greiner</b>, was an advisor to Jim Nussle's gubernatorial campaign. Greiner was Nussle's chief of staff in the '90s. After Nussle's loss, he and Greiner formed a consulting firm, Navigating Strategies, which advised the Giuliani campaign.

DCI Group chair <b>Thomas J. Synhorst</b> got his start working in the 1980s as an aide for Senator Grassley.

Last month, Minnesota Democrats filed an FEC complaint against AFF which included AFF contact information from a television ad buy. Nicole Schlinger was listed as AFF president but the post office box was one used by <b>Nicholas T. "Nick" Ryan</b>, Nussle's long time campaign director. 

Nick Ryan now works for Bruce Rastetter, a wealthy Iowan businessman who briefly considered running against Tom Harkin this year. As outlined in my other TPM Cafe posts about AFF and IFF, another Rastetter employee, <b>Eric Peterson</b>, is the likely president of IFF.

Although I have not yet verified a direct connection between American Future Fund and the DCI Group, all signs are pointing that way. The other question is whether Jim Nussle's appointment, given the timing, is in some way linked to AFF's mission.