A FACTSHEET FROM CAMPAIGN MONEY WATCH
Last Updated August 6, 2008

Throughout the presidential campaign, voters in Ohio have expressed increased concern about a deal between German-owned shipping company DHL and UPS to close a plant in Wilmington and transfer all domestic DHL shipping operations to a UPS plant in Kentucky. The move will cost Ohio at least 8,000 jobs. But while McCain has expressed concern about anti-trust issues, and the entire Ohio congressional delegation has called for an investigation (1), a report today in the Cleveland Plain Dealer shows that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in fact played an important role in the merger deal that permitted a foreign-owned company to own DHL in the first place. (2)

“Those jobs are on the chopping block because Sen. McCain and his campaign were involved in a deal that resulted in control of those positions being shifted to a foreign corporation, and there's no getting around that," Joe Rugola, president of the Ohio AFL-CIO, told the Plain Dealer.” (3)

Moreover, three lobbyists in significant positions on the McCain camp lobbied for the companies in question, and one of them has lobbied not just for DHL, but much more recently for UPS. This prompts additional questions: Why isn’t McCain joining the Ohio delegation in calling for an investigation into a possible anti-trust violation? How can McCain impartially investigate anti-trust issues when his top advisors recently earned more than $1 million from the companies involved to help them make the type of deal that is under scrutiny today? (4)

Three McCain staffers have lobbied on behalf of the companies involved, and one of them, John Green, has lobbied for both of the companies involved in the anti-trust issue

• Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, and Christian Ferry, McCain’s e-campaign director, both lobbied for Deutsche Post, the company that bought DHL and Airborne in 2002 and 2003, between October 2003 and December 2005. During this time their firm, Davis-Manafort, billed $465,000 in fees.
  
  
• Davis and Ferry both also lobbied on behalf of Airborne in 2003, earning an additional $125,000 in fees. Their work involved lobbying the Senate to approve the DHL-Airborne merger, which it did. (5)
  
  
• John Green, McCain’s liaison to Congress, lobbied for Deutsche Post from June 2003 to April 2006, earning $600,000 in fees.
  
  
• Then, Green recently lobbied on behalf of UPS, earning $40,000 for lobbying work between August 2007 and March 2008.

1. Marc Pitzke, “DHL Deal with UPS Turns Political,” Business Week, July 31, 2008.

2. Stephen Koff, “McCain had role in original Wilmington DHL deal,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, Openers Blog.

3. Ibid.

4. Campaign finance and lobbying figures are based on Campaign Money Watch analysis of data obtained from the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan organization that tracks and codes campaign finance data by industry and tracks lobbying. Campaign finance data include individual contributions ($200+) and from Political Action Committees (PACs) to campaign committees and leadership PACs. Data for the 2008 cycle were downloaded in June 2008.

5. Koff, 2008.