John McCain Rallies With Pro-War 527 Group (Vets For Freedom), The Same Sort Of Group He Previously Opposed

11:22 am EST April 8th, 2008 | News | 6 Comments

John McCain, 2004 edition

At a hearing Wednesday of the Senate Rules Committee to debate the role of the 527 groups, McCain, a Republican from Arizona who co-authored the 2002 campaign finance reform law that bears his name, voiced anger at what he said was a clear undermining of the original 1974 campaign finance law.

In his testimony, McCain twice threatened to go to court to force the FEC to crack down on 527 groups.

John McCain, 2008 edition

Before attending the Senate Armed Services hearing with Petraeus and Crocker, McCain attended a rally sponsored by the pro-Iraq war Vets for Freedom, where he continued to praise Petraeus, calling him “one of [America's] greatest generals.”

Who are “Vets for Freedom”? A pro-war front group.

In July 2006, VFF—calling itself the Vets for Freedom Action Fund (VFF-AF)—registered with the IRS as a 527 committee national lobby. It was, in essence, a Republican front group managed by Republican-affiliated public relations, media, legal, and political consultants, including former White House spokesman Taylor Gross, to defeat candidates who advocate an end to the US occupation of Iraq.

At some point in his road to the nomination the unprincipled John McCain gave up his objections to 527s.

Video of John McCain just a few weeks ago saying 527s “distort” the political process and ought to be “outlawed”. And then he went up to our Capitol and rallied with them.

Topic: 2008 Election, John McCain

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6 Responses to “John McCain Rallies With Pro-War 527 Group (Vets For Freedom), The Same Sort Of Group He Previously Opposed”

Duros62 says:

April 8, 2008 at 12:34 pm

Any minute now I expect him to channel Ross Perot’s running mate:

Where am I? Why am I here?
midderpidge says:

April 8, 2008 at 1:05 pm

Funny you should post that, the top video for MSNBC’s Hardball page is the executive director of this 527 spewing a bunch of crap and getting his ass handed to him by the guy from VoteVets.org
mambochicken23 says:

April 8, 2008 at 1:36 pm

What a maverick! What a leader!

What a douche.
merl says:

April 9, 2008 at 5:11 am

These are “veterans” of the culture war, right? I doubt any of them ever actually fought a real war.
Or maybe they’re a bunch of REMFs from Kuwait.
jr says:

April 9, 2008 at 9:13 am

Death to Freedom’s Watch astroturf groups who don’t care that soldier’s families are on food stamps and Bush has gutted the VA while cutting taxes for the top 1 percent
Three Funny Numbers For John W. McBush « The Liberal Doomsayer says:

October 28, 2008 at 10:13 pm

[...] while I don’t recall any pledges from Manion about 527s, Oliver Willis notes here that a certain Republican presidential candidate rallied with Vets for Freedom, though he once [...]