I’m a subscriber to Jim Hightower’s newsletter. This month’s issue is about all the lobbyists that are working for McCain’s campaign. You can’t read the whole article online, but here are some excerpts.
This is what Jim wrote in reference to Phil’s comment about Americans being a “nation of whiners”
. . . (McCain) could not have been surprised, for it came right out of the inner Gramm that we Texans (and McCain) have long known . . . Consider this golden gem from Gramm on the matter of poverty in America: “We’re the only nation in the World where all our poor people are fat.”
Hightower also wrote that once McCain’s lobbyist staffers were discovered that he started a new rule that
 . . . bars “active” lobbyists from being “paid” to work “full time” on the staff. These highlighted terms are carefully contrived loopholes. Lobbyists can simply go on leave from their active influence peddling fro a few months to work on the campaign (as Rick Davis is doing);