In a front page, above the fold story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer this morning, John McCain is slammed for steering a recent Air Force contract to Airbus over Boeing:
WASHINGTON -- Supporters of The Boeing Co. blame Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, for the company's failure to win the lucrative $35 billion contract to build new Air Force aerial refueling tankers.
The Air Force last week awarded the contract to a team of Airbus parent EADS and Northrop Grumman Corp., triggering a firestorm from Boeing advocates who said the victory by the European-led consortium ignored American national security interests and would cost U.S. jobs.
Boeing advocates say McCain was a major force behind the Air Force decision to ignore the issue of government subsidies to Airbus when the tanker contract was put up for competitive bidding last year.
This is a story that has legs in a state in which thousands of solid, middle class jobs are at stake. With recent poll showing that Washington state is a toss up in the presidential election, this could be a crushing blow to McCain's chances.
"The only reason that (Airbus) could even bid a low price is because they receive a subsidy," said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., whose Seattle-area district includes thousands of Boeing workers. "Senator McCain jumped into this and said that they (the Air Force) could not look at the subsidy issue, which I think is a big mistake," he told PBS.
But this is more than an economics story. It's also one of McCain once more doing the bidding of his lobbyist handlers:
McCain himself has received support from the EADS North America executive suite. He has received more than $12,000 in campaign donations from some of the company's top U.S. officials, support that continued even as his presidential campaign was foundering in mid- to late 2007.
Don't know how this is playing around the country, but it will make it much easier to defeat McCain here in the Pacific Northwest.