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Back on the bus
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April 5, 2000 | Sen. John McCain, the self-styled anti-inside-the-Beltway maverick, and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the not-quite-declared contender for U.S. Senate, got back on the bus Tuesday, as McCain made his first appearance stumping for another candidate since he dropped out of the presidential race last month. The duo spent the morning on Long Island, where Giuliani is counting on major support to defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton, and where McCain actually beat Gov. George W. Bush by 10 points in the March 7 primary. They started out at the Landmark Diner in Roslyn, Long Island, a sprawling establishment with a mirrored ceiling and place mats with cocktail recipes on them. McCain and Giuliani entered, and were promptly mobbed by the assorted photographers, cameras and scribes.
Accompanied by Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari (McCain's chief sponsor in New York) they made a round of the restaurant, shaking hands with nearly every available customer, waiter and waitresses. They arrived at a table before a spread of scrambled eggs and ham, surrounded by the reporters' outstretched arms clutching tape recorders. One microphone boom bounced into a light fixture and knocked feathers into one of the diner's meals. Gabe Pressman, the dean of local New York television political reporters, noted this Senate race was "awash in soft money," which McCain has vowed to eliminate. Pressman leaned in and asked the self-styled champion of campaign-finance reform, "Did you come here to convert the sinners?" "I don't approve of soft money," McCain replied, "but I also understand that Mayor Giuliani would be at distinct and significant disadvantage if he did not play by the present rules. I don't approve of it. I want it changed. But I also understand that given the huge amounts of money that's coming into this campaign, that he has to fight fire with fire." Earlier Tuesday, Common Cause announced Tuesday that it filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that both campaigns are illegally coordinating efforts to raise soft money, which cannot by definition be solicited by a candidate specifically for his or her campaign. Giuliani chimed in, quickly attacking "a candidate and an administration that has a history of the worst campaign-finance abuses in the history of the country." He added: "I remember raising money from the Chinese. I remember the Lincoln Bedroom. I remember that amounts of money that are extraordinary that the Clintons have gotten away with and I'm not a fool." Not surprisingly, he didn't mention the significant fines his last mayoral campaign incurred for accepting excessive contributions, many of them from companies doing business with the city; or the time his campaign treasurer personally arranged for him to meet with several construction executives doing city business who contributed mightily to his campaign; or McCain's intervention with the Federal Communications Commission on the apparent behalf of a contributor. A Giuliani aide cried out "last question" and the crowd started to break up. The mayor left a $20 bill as a tip. "It's not meant to make a comment or anything," he explained, a reference to an episode earlier this year when Hillary Clinton reportedly stiffed her waitress. "We created a big disruption for these people." So they piled out. McCain and Giuliani boarded a massive Peter Pan VIP bus where they would make the trip to the next campaign stop. There wasn't room for the entire press entourage, so a few reporters were selected for the journey. The New York Post's Robert Hardt was the sole print reporter allowed on the bus. What follows is a partial transcript:
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