A Convention Quandary
John McCain’s choice to manage the GOP convention this summer is lobbyist Doug Goodyear, whose firm once represented Burma’s repressive regime.
Michael Isikoff
Updated: 11:27 AM ET May 10, 2008

After John McCain nailed down the Republican nomination in March, his campaign began wrestling with a sensitive personnel issue: who would manage this summer’s GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn.? The campaign recently tapped Doug Goodyear for the job, a veteran operative and Arizonan who was chosen for his “management experience and expertise,” according to McCain press secretary Jill Hazelbaker. But some allies worry that Goodyear’s selection could fuel perceptions that McCain—who has portrayed himself as a crusader against special interests—is surrounded by lobbyists. Goodyear is CEO of DCI Group, a consulting firm that earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients.

Forget all that lobbyist muckity muck! The McCain campaign has a prime opportunity here to woo Republican voters…

Potentially more problematic: the firm was paid $348,000 in 2002 to represent Burma’s military junta, which had been strongly condemned by the State Department for its human-rights record and remains in power today. Justice Department lobbying records show DCI pushed to “begin a dialogue of political reconciliation” with the regime. It also led a PR campaign to burnish the junta’s image, drafting releases praising Burma’s efforts to curb the drug trade and denouncing “falsehoods” by the Bush administration that the regime engaged in rape and other abuses. “It was our only foreign representation, it was for a short tenure, and it was six years ago,” Goodyear told NEWSWEEK, adding the junta’s record in the current cyclone crisis is “reprehensible.”

Don’t run away from your base, Senator McCain! What better way to prove your Conservative bona fides then siding with a authoritarian military junta who mismanages a predictable disaster and rejects the U.N. (’cause everyone knows the U.N. is a one world government body trying to subvert the U.S. of A.).

• BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
• « Tragedy or Comedy
• » Paging Dr. Freud.

• BROWSE / IN Politics
• « Tragedy or Comedy
• » Paging Dr. Freud.