Leader of GOP convention quits after Myanmar ties reported

Coordinator of GOP convention quits after Newsweek report on his firm's ties to Myanmar junta

Staff
AP News

May 10, 2008 18:04 EST

The man picked by the John McCain campaign to run the 2008 Republican National Convention resigned Saturday after a report that his lobbying firm used to represent the military regime in Myanmar.

Doug Goodyear resigned as convention coordinator and issued a two sentence statement:

"Today I offered the convention my resignation so as not to become a distraction in this campaign. I continue to strongly support John McCain for president, and wish him the best of luck in this campaign."

Goodyear, chief executive of lobbying firm DCI Group, resigned a few hours after Newsweek posted a story posted online that the company was paid $348,000 in 2002 and 2003 to represent Myanmar's junta.

"We respect Mr. Goodyear's decision, and look forward to the convention in September," said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign.

Cyclone Nargis left more than 60,000 people dead or missing, and the U.N. estimates that at least 1.5 million people have been severely affected. Human rights organizations and dissident groups have bitterly accused the junta of neglecting disaster victims and blocking foreign donations of relief supplies.

Justice Department records covering agents of foreign agents that are required to register with the U.S. government show DCI signed a contract to work to "improve relations between the United States and Myanmar" and to act as the junta's public relations agent in Washington.

Newsweek said the firm drafted news releases praising Burma's efforts to curb the drug trade and denouncing claims by the Bush administration that the regime engaged in rape and other abuses.

"It was our only foreign representation, it was for a short tenure, and it was six years ago," Newsweek quoted Goodyear as saying. The magazine said Goodyear added that the junta's record in the current cyclone crisis is "reprehensible."

The Newsweek article also reported that some of Goodyear's allies worry that worry the choice of Goodyear could fuel perceptions that McCain is surrounded by lobbyists. DCI Group earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients, the report said.

Newsweek also reported DCI has been a pioneer in running "independent" expenditure campaigns by so-called 527 groups, the kind of operations that McCain has denounced in his battle for campaign finance reform.

The convention runs Sept. 1-4 at the Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul.

I read this yesterday war!
Is there no politician left who is not a sell-out!

Oh wait, there is John Edwards!!!

Dr.Ron Paul, or Dr.No as those who seek to buy politicians favor call him!

What do you think of the America First Party?
Paul should run there or The Constitution Party! They suit him more. The America First Party doesn't have a candidate for President. The Constitution Party does, Chuck Baldwin!

Personally I think Ron Paul is a joke! Sorry, I considered him once but his platform is to extreme.

What part of his platform seems extreme to you?

Dissolving the Fed Reserve, the Dept of Ed, The dept of Health, his stance on abortion, and gun control. (too lenient)

Then everytime I see him at a congressional hearing he rattles and rambles making political statements in the form of questions leaving no time nor wanting a real answer!

Even Hillary makes more since, and I despise her!!

Okay, I have heard some of these before. Let me see if I might address them.

The fed isn't even constitutional, the Constitution specifically states that the Congress has the authority to coin and control money, not a private banking institution, nothing in the Constitution supports the creation of a central banking cartel. Furtermore, the fed is responsible for the inflationary tax, which means they flood the market with liquidity which in turn devalues the dollar, this practice is easy to point out because if any one thing is most responsible for the mess our economy is in, it's that.

The Dept. of Ed. has gotten us what? Standardized testing? No Child Left behind? Can little Johnny read beyond a 6th grade level when he graduates? In some cases yes, but in a scary amount of cases, no. The standards set by the Dept. of Ed. has in fact been responsible for teaching lies to children, by smoothing over what was incredibley complex issues in history or just out right teaching of fallacies like the Columbus "discovery" of America or the Civil war starting over the slavery issue and not about secession, never mind they don't even talk about how horrible Lincoln was on Civil liberties, he did after all suspend Habeus Corpus. The Dept of Ed, in fact hasn't done any good and it makes things difficult for parents who want to do more for their children by homeschooling.


His stance on abortion is simple, it's too complicated of an issue for the Federal Government to offer a one size fits all solution, while he personally doesn't agree with abortion and sees it as violence against the unborn, he would be much more accepting of it as a states solution by votes of the people rather than a Roe V. Wade solution by the Supreme Court.

As for gun control, he stands by the 2nd amendment, that's his platfrom, not some personal choice or lobbyist money, but the Constitution makes that call for him. Right to keep and bear arms.
Paul believes that a weapons ban at the federal or state level does not work. "Of course true military-style automatic rifles remain widely available to criminals on the black market. So practically speaking, the assault weapons banning does nothing to make us safer."
Rather, he sees school shootings, plane hijackings, and other such events as a result of prohibitions on self-defense.Based on Paul's responses to a 1996 survey,he supports the right of citizens to carry concealed firearms if they are legally owned.

I don't recall him calling for an end to the Dept of health specifically, but I could be wrong, and in the end, he is for reducing the size and scope of the Government. What's the last big good thing you can name coming out of the Dept of Health? It's nothing more than a arm of the Government regulating the people, it sure hasn't helped the Health care market, in fact it seems to keep prices higher than they should be.

As for the way he handles his part of the Congressional oversight committee's that he is apart of, I think alot of that stems from him and other True conservatives being marginalized in favor of big government, corrupt Neocons. So instead of turing it all into a big arguement, he makes his statements for the record and does his best to get good pieces of legislation introduced to stop the problems, especially as it pertains to that criminal failure of a federal reserve system.

If you really think Hillary makes more sense, I'm sorry...but then again communism sounds reasonable until you have to live under it!

The fed isn't even constitutional, the Constitution specifically states that the Congress has the authority to coin and control money, not a private banking institution, nothing in the Constitution supports the creation of a central banking cartel. Furtermore, the fed is responsible for the inflationary tax, which means they flood the market with liquidity which in turn devalues the dollar, this practice is easy to point out because if any one thing is most responsible for the mess our economy is in, it's that.

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This is Ron Paul's tale and not original. There is nothing about the Fed that is unconstitutional. Ron Paul's education is as a Doctor, and he hasn't even practiced that in years. The budget and financial structure of this country is far beyond his understanding as is the case for 99.9% of Americans. (me included) It is better left the way it is, managed by experts, but with perhaps a little fine tuning. To completely dissolve it and return to people walking around with gold coins is preposterous and a little more than insane. Our financial institution (The Fed) is a model for the world, and its success has caused it to be copied by most!

The value of the dollar is weakened by an extremely unbalanced trade deficit more than anything as attested to by most experts. This is the result of outsourcing manufacturing jobs!

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To go through each of these issues is a waste of time.
I'll tell you why,
First Ron Paul, or any President for that matter, does not have the power to single handily do what he suggests.
The time he would spend on trying to get these "ideas" made into bills and passed (not going to happen) is time The President of The US could better utilize in more urgent and realistic problems this country faces.
This convinces me that Ron Paul has no clue how to be President, and explains why he can not muster more than 2% to support him.

I will agree, he makes political statement during congressional hearings, and never expects an answer. He is nothing but another puppet politician, and if he allowed people to answer his questions they would expose the stupidity of his questions, and him as the fraud that he is!

Don't hate the answers hate the game!!

I am going to have to disagree with you, that the financial ruin of the Dollar is just Dr.Pauls story, because he is brought on economic shows, such as Kramers mad money, because of his knowledge of economy, what causes dollar flux and who is to blame for it.

What Dr. Paul is advocating isn't for a return to just the gold/silver coin, but to a return of the Gold standard, which would mean backing the dollar with that commodity.

You're correct about no President being able to carte blanche do what he wants...oh, wait, with the advent of the signing statement, the overuse of the PDD, EO and the like, a President can do just about anything he wants. Thing is Dr. Paul wouldn't use that murky system, because he believes in transparent Government, but can you say the same for a Pres. Obama or a Pres. McCain. Thas something to think real hard about, because Presidential powers transfer to the next person.
Due to his taking his orders from the Constitution, I would guess that by not using the facsist powers and going through congress, like you're supposed to, that he might find some pretty severe opposition from those that are owned by lobbyists.
How is Dr.Paul a fraud again? He does what he says he is going to do and his voting record reflects that. Can you say that about the other 3 mainstream candidates?

2%! LOL!, thats so not accurate, he's pulled in over a million votes overall at this point, thats not to bad for a guy who only averaged 5 minutes of speaking time per debate. He just pulled an 8% in N.C. and in Indiana not to mention he recieved 16% in Pennsylvania.
What really funny is how the delegates are falling in Dr.Pauls camp hand over fist, to the point the McCain loving Nevada GOP walked out of their own convention after they got shut down trying to present a list of acceptable delegates and trying to put these things together behind closed doors.

Dr.Paul's a puppet? LOL! Thats a joke, right?

Oops! Guess he wasn't properly vetted!

The convention might be in St. Paul, but most of the conventioneers will have reserved rooms in Bloomington's hotels.

Bloomington is a suburb of Minneapolis.