Fannie & Freddie "Advocate" Rick Davis Courts GOP Fundraisers

You might recall that John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis, and his company, received a significant amount of money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because of his relationship with Senator McCain. The revelation of these payments in The New York Times and Newsweek prompted Mr. Davis to cancel a planned lunch with reporters yesterday. Last night, however, he was all about dining with the GOP's moneyed elite in New York City. According to Hotline, the dinner featured,

calls for more fundraising for the party by leading New York money harvesters.

The event was hosted by one of the GOP’s top fundraisers Woody Johnson IV, who heads the Johnson Cos. and has raised more than $500,000 for the McCain campaign.

[. . . .]

Even though campaign officials were temporarily told to suspend their fundraising and other activities per McCain’s instructions, Johnson told the assembled guests that they “ought to redouble their efforts” to make sure that an upcoming fundraiser in New York on Oct 14 is a success, according to the attendee.

(The funds that will be raised in New York, like other events post GOP convention when McCain opted to take $84 million in public funding for the general election, go largely to the RNC, but a campaign run legal and accounting fund is still allowed to accept some monies.)

Apparently, Mr. Davis talked about Senator McCain's abrupt decision to suspend his campaign and head to Washington DC, as well as critiques of Henry Paulson's initial indecisiveness over the recent economic chaos (we'll assume that no mention was made of Senator McCain's own uncertainty).

If anyone thought Mr. Davis's campaign role would be reduced following the NYT and Newsweek disclosures, well, not quite. Instead, it just looks as though he'll simply shun the media--as do the campaign's other major players.

Aside: Newsweek's Michael Isikoff has provided an update on the Rick Davis story, and it looks like the McCain camp is bending truth about Mr. Davis just a bit.