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McCain Opens Door to Media at Fundraisers

June 09, 2008 5:02 PM

ABC News' Bret Hovell Reports: Before Monday, reporters covering Sen. John McCain had to guess at what the Arizona Republican might say at his numerous closed-door fundraisers.

But the wait is over -- McCain's campaign has opened up his “finance events” for the news media, and it turns out there’s not much news.

McCain’s camp has long maintained that he gives essentially the same speech while shaking the money tree that he does while asking for votes. But in recent weeks they have come under fire for not allowing reporters to verify that claim, even while contending that McCain was running the most open and accessible campaign in history.

Now the campaign allows a "print pool" -– a small group of reporters who take notes and then share the information with their colleagues –- into all of McCain’s fundraisers. But there are still not any cameras allowed. That, the campaign says, is to protect the identity of attendees.

"The people who are raising the money request that," McCain told reporters late last month in Los Angeles. “And I will continue to be accessible, and the most accessible campaign in history to the media … I say the same thing in fundraisers and closed events as I do in open events.”

According to the pool report of Monday’s two fundraisers in Richmond, McCain did stay largely within the confines of his typical stump speech, talking about wasteful spending and the war in Iraq.

Of note, he was asked about his vice presidential selection process, and made a joke that it was like a Google search at this point in time, seeming to reference the thorough vetting that is done of all potential public supporters of modern presidential candidates. (The McCain campaign recently admitted to a mistake in its endorsement vetting process of controversial Pastor John Hagee, whose anti- Catholic views came as a surprise to the candidate and his staff only after McCain had accepted Hagee’s endorsement.)

Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger introduced McCain at one event, and compared Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama to former President Jimmy Carter.

“And perhaps we should make that identification stick,” Eagleburger said, offering up some campaign strategy.

McCain spent a little time engaging in some political backslapping at the events as well, thanking various local and state Republican politicians for coming out on his behalf, such as James Gilmore, the Republican nominee for Senate in Virginia, and Jerry Kilgore, the former Republican attorney general of the state.

The campaign said that the bigger of the two fundraisers Monday in Richmond netted $800,000 for McCain’s fundraising committee, Victory ’08.

June 9, 2008 in Hunter, Duncan, Thompson, Fred | Permalink | User Comments (2)

User Comments

Posted by: Debbie | Jun 9, 2008 5:46:12 PM

Posted by: Louise | Jun 10, 2008 1:10:01 PM

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