The Washington Post reported yesterday that Cindy McCain, wife of presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) received free cell towers to benefit cell phone service to her ranch in Sedona, AZ. While these free portable towers are usually used for outages by Verizon and AT&T, Cindy McCain got one each from both of the them because of spotty service.

Trying to leave behind his involvement in the Keating Five scandal, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his advisers today declared the whole thing was a "political smear job," and it didn't really go down how anybody says it did.

Well, as the Google tells us, there is someone that disagrees with Sen. McCain. That would be Sen. McCain.

In light of the Wall Street downturn, incessant bailout talk, and John McCain's decision to "suspend" his campaign and jump in to the bailout negotiations, Campaign Money Watch, a project of Public Campaign Action Fund, has a new ad that reminds Sen. McCain of own ethically wobbling history with the financial and real estate industries and asks the Senator to throw his weight behind Fair Elections legislation instead.

Several news outlets are reporting this morning that the lobby shop owned by Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign manager, Rick Davis, was receiving payments of $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac through August. You may remember that the American taxpayer recently payed a hefty fee in bailing out Fannie Mae and its brother Freddie Mac. This contradicts statements by Sen.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) used to be one of Clean Elections staunchest allies, supporting efforts to win publicly financed elections at the state level and speaking out about the corrupting influence of money in politics at the federal level. But in recent years his commitment to this issue has flagged and as our own David Donnelly writes at Huffington Post, we're sorry to see him go.

Let's assume that John McCain did in fact have Alaska Governor Sarah Palin thoroughly vetted before selecting her as his running mate. One can only further assume then that he really savors a challenge, because in addition to the more high-profile news that has leaked about the Governor over the weekend, several questions have been raised about just how ethically sound this "reformer's" credentials are.

Well we have a decision from the FEC on whether Sen. John McCain broke the rules when abruptly backed out of the presidential public financing system for the primary race. In a widely anticipated move the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission voted unanimously to sign off on McCain's opt-out.

NPR's Marketplace reported on the pending decision by the Federal Election Commission on whether John McCain broke the rules when he opted in, then opted out of the presidential public financing program for the primary election. David Donnelly, of Public Campaign Action Fund's Campaign Money Watch project comments on the controversy here.

We asked last week why Sen. John McCain, a guy who prides himself on a reputation as a "reformer" would attend a fundraiser that Ralph Reed -- buddy of Abramoff who profitted handsomely off the corrupt lobbyist's tribal casino scam -- helped pull together.

The New York Times addresses Mssrs. McCain and Obama on the subject of bundling advising both should pledge to make it a priority to rein in the practice should be elected President. The Times goes a step further and says that while addressing bundling is important, full public financing of campaigns should be the ultimate goal.