For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk: New York Times

female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers,visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet.Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his topadvisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructingstaff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her awayand repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaignsaid on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizationsreported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulatorson behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associatessaid, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on herinvolvement.

Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40,both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers,even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients oftenhad business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened thestory of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.

Ithad been just a decade since an official favor for a friend withregulatory problems had nearly ended Mr. McCain’s political career byensnaring him in the Keating Five scandal. In the years that followed,he reinvented himself as the scourge of special interests, a crusaderfor stricter ethics and campaign finance rules, a man of honorchastened by a brush with shame.

But the concerns about Mr.McCain’s relationship with Ms. Iseman underscored an enduring paradoxof his post-Keating career. Even as he has vowed to hold himself to thehighest ethical standards, his confidence in his own integrity hassometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts ofinterest.

Mr. McCain promised, for example, never to fly directlyfrom Washington to Phoenix, his hometown, to avoid the impression ofself-interest because he sponsored a law that opened the route nearly adecade ago. But like other lawmakers, he often flew on the corporatejets of business executives seeking his support, including the mediamoguls Rupert Murdoch, Michael R. Bloomberg and Lowell W. Paxson, Ms. Iseman’s client. (Last year he voted to end the practice.)

Mr.McCain helped found a nonprofit group to promote his personal battlefor tighter campaign finance rules. But he later resigned as itschairman after news reports disclosed that the group was tapping thesame kinds of unlimited corporate contributions he opposed, includingthose from companies seeking his favor. He has criticized the cozy tiesbetween lawmakers and lobbyists, but is relying on corporate lobbyiststo donate their time running his presidential race and recently hired alobbyist to run his Senate office.