EXTRA...

McCain Campaign Chairman received $380k to stop Cape Wind

See both updates - Tom Loeffler resigns - McCain very funny on SNL video

UPDATE:
Lobbyist Quits McCain Campaign
John McCain has lost another top aide to his campaign's uneasy reliance on lobbyists. The self-titled lobbying firm of Mr. McCain's national finance co-chairman, Tom Loeffler, has been working for the Saudi Arabian government since 2002, while its other foreign and corporate clients include European Aeronautic Defence and Space -- which recently beat out Boeing for a huge Pentagon contract -- and Newsweek cites lobbying disclosure records that show Mr. Loeffler brought Mr. McCain together with the Saudi ambassador to discuss bilateral relations in 2006. Mr. Loeffler quit yesterday, making him the fifth person to cut ties with the campaign over lobbying ties, as the Washington Post reports. His departure follows last week's campaign edict requiring all personnel to resign or drop their lobbying and outside political connections. "Senior staff people cannot be registered to lobby," senior McCain aide Charlie Black tells The Wall Street Journal, which notes Mr. Black himself only recently parted ways with his own lobbying firm.The loss of Mr. Loeffler, a formidable fund-raiser, may hurt the campaign beyond perceptions of the lobbying issue... WSJ. ‘Green’ Hypocrisy: McCain’s Senior Advisers Lobbied To Prevent Cape Wind Project
Senator McCain had endorsed the project during the NH Primary

On Monday, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) unveiled an “incoherent” global warming plan at the North American headquarters of the Danish wind turbine company Vestas. McCain has justified his long and active opposition to federal support for the domestic wind industry by claiming it “is doing fine.” In his speech Monday, McCain praised wind power for “changing our economy for the better” and said:

"When we debate energy bills in Washington, it should be more than a competition among industries for special favors, subsidies, and tax breaks. In the Congress, we need to send the special interests on their way — without their favors and subsidies."

Yesterday, the Wonk Room noted that his top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, disagrees with McCain’s rosy assessment of the wind industry, saying that it needs federal support because “he would want to make sure that we did not at this point in time stop the wind and solar from progressing.”

In fact, two of McCain’s top advisers have been directly involved in stopping the wind industry from progressing, by lobbying against the construction of the first offshore wind farm in the United States — the Cape Wind project proposed for Massachusetts’s Nantucket Sound:

Charlie Black, Senior Political Adviser to McCain: Senate lobbying disclosure documents reveal that lobbying firm BKSH & Associates was retained in January 2008 by the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound to “Defeat the proposal for 130 wind turbines” and “promote alternative means to meet energy needs without sacrificing Nantucket Sound.” Charlie Black was the chairman of BKSH until March. [Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act database]

Tom Loeffler, McCain’s Campaign Co-chairman: The Loeffler Group received $380,000 from the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound from 2003 to 2005 to lobby against Cape Wind. The Loeffler Group was founded by former Republican congressman Tom Loeffler, who remains its chairman. [Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act database]...

The Wonk Room. 
See the McCain endorsement of Cape Wind here.
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UPDATE TODAY: Tom Loeffler, McCain Co-Char, resigns
Politico's Allen broke the news regarding the fifth resignation from Team McCain over lobbying entanglements -- this one national finance co-chair Tom Loeffler. "The McCain campaign, already facing the prospect of being badly outgunned in the general election, now also must cope with the disruption of the lobbying shakeout. The McCain campaign’s stringent approach to the issue is provoking a bit of grumbling from some of its Washington allies, who point out that a lobbyist’s function is enshrined in the Constitution. ‘No one in real America cares,’ said one key Republican. ‘But McCain cares.’”  See MSNBC report.
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McCain boffo on SNL: Plugs "oldness", Knocks "earmarks"