For McCain, the New York Times dropped this H-bomb, when in a front-page issue, the Times exposed McCain's scandalous role of supporting the Paxson Communications (now Ion Media Networks) in a bid for a TV station in Pittsburgh with the FCC, while also taking financial donations from the lobby in his bid for the presidency in 2000. Although the curry of the controversy focused on his romantic relationship with Vicki Iseman, a 33-year-old single woman, who worked for the lobby, and who was often tracked alongside McCain during his campaign in 2000. Though the controversy did harm McCain somewhat, the irony of this scandal was the timing of the issue, just when he had taken the GOP front seat in seeking the presidential nomination. Unknown sources of the Times questioned the reliability of the entire story.
The Senator from Illinois, seldom mentioned as Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., has also had controversies surround his campaign. Obama's controversial dealings with Tony Rezko, a developer from Chicago, in relation to his house deal have time and again dogged Obama on the presidential campaign. Rezko, in the past has also been attributed with raising $150,000 for the Obama camp, which eventually was donated by the camp to various charities, after it was highlighted by the media. Obama came under heavy scrutiny by the Clinton camp for his use of words also used by Gov. Devall Patrick during his run as the Governor of Massachusetts. The other side of the story was that Devall was a senior campaign advisor for Obama who had suggested he use those words. More recently, Obama came under attack when Louis Farrakhan, the acting head of the nation of Islam who once called Judaism a bloodsucking religion, endorsed him. Though Obama was quick to denounce and reject his endorsement, some critics quickly questioned his commitment to Israel, especially after he revealed his plans to engage in talks with Iran if elected president.
Hillary Clinton might have called it quits, but she too was heavily criticized by the media. One criticism focused on how aggressively she attacked her opponents during her campaign. First, she went after Obama about issues, and when that didn't work, she played the race card by labeling Obama as the next Jesse Jackson. After that, she chose a completely different path where she criticized the media for bias by favorably covering Obama and not Clinton. The media criticized Clinton for not making her tax returns public. When they were finally revealed, we learned that she had loaned a huge sum to her campaign, and several controversial foreign business deals involving her husband came to light. The firing of her campaign manager and the picture of Obama reaching the Drudge report, by some unknown Clinton supporter in which he was dressed in a traditional garb during his visit to Kenya in 2006, have left many marks on the kind of campaign Sen. Clinton was running.
That being said, controversies are something that tend to get attached to politics and politicians, much like the quizzes and exams are attached to the life of a student.
