McCain Advisers Lobbied for Airbus-by Jim Kuhnhenn
Top current advisers to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign last year lobbied for a European plane maker that beat Boeing to a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract, taking sides in a bidding fight that McCain has tried to referee for more than five years. Two of the advisers gave up their lobbying work when they joined McCain's campaign. A third, former Texas Rep. Tom Loeffler, lobbied for the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. while serving as McCain's national finance chairman. EADS is the parent company of Airbus, which teamed up with U.S.-based Northrop Grumman Corp. to win the lucrative aerial refueling contract on Feb. 29. Boeing Co. Chairman and CEO Jim McNerney said in a statement Monday that the Chicago-based aerospace company "found serious flaws in the process that we believe warrant appeal."
McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in waiting, has been a key figure in the Pentagon's yearslong attempt to complete a deal on the tanker. McCain helped block an earlier tanker contract with Boeing and prodded the Pentagon in 2006 to develop bidding procedures that did not exclude Airbus. EADS retained Ogilvy Government Relations and The Loeffler Group.
1 comment:
The manufacturing guys over at Evolving Excellence have also been taking Boeing to task, first in terms of the hypocrisy of whining about losing the tanker deal to NG/Airbus at:
http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2008/03/boeing-whiner-e.html
Then the even greater hypocrisy of the politicians that are siding with Boeing:
http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2008/03/so-whos-more-pa.html
Lani
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