Since our earlier post about a video of a "man-hug" between Senator John McCain and convicted ponzi-schemer Scott Rothstein, McCain's campaign got back to us and makes a valid point: John McCain does not have ESP.
"Senator McCain has many admirable qualities, but unfortunately the power to see into the future is not one of them," McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers tells New Times. "There was obviously no way to know at the time that Rothstein would turn out to be a crook. Maybe we should have called Congressman Hayworth's fellow infomercial scam star, Miss Cleo."
McCain's opponent in the GOP Senate primary, J.D. Hayworth, is circulating a video of "The Maverick" and Rothstein engaged in a "man-hug" at a fundraising event Rothstein hosted for McCain during the 2008 presidential campaign.
"These fundraisers were both held well over two years ago, long before any information about Scott Rothstein's misdeeds surfaced," Rogers says. "They were just two fundraisers out of hundreds that helped raise more than $400 million from over 1.5 million donors to elect Senator McCain in his presidential bid and Republicans nationwide in 2008."
Rothstein since has been convicted of running an elaborate ponzi scheme that stole billions of dollars from investors. He's currently serving a 50-year prison sentence.
According to the Hayworth campaign, Rothstein helped raise more than $1 million for McCain's presidential campaign, but Rogers claims Rothstein's contributions were donated to charity when the allegations against him were made public about seven months ago -- well before "a desperate J.D. Hayworth tried to use it as a campaign tactic."
