About that campaign finance reform...

In 2006, McCain took his name off the reform effort that he had previously supported in 2003.

Then in 2007, he said he would vote to strip away part of that same package that he had tried to pass four years earlier:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has told conservative activists that he will vote to strip a key provision on grassroots lobbying from the reform package he previously supported.

The provision would require grassroots organizations to report on their fundraising activities and is strongly opposed by groups such as the National Right to Life Committee, Gun Owners of America, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

On a different note, in 1996 and 1997, John McCain proposed legislation that

would ban a candidate or a candidate's authorized committee from paying registered lobbyists

But by May 2008, he had 134 lobbyists either working as paid staff or raising money for him.

Negative publicity caused him to create a new conflict-of-interest policy and fire several lobbyists from his campaign that month. The policy clearly states:

No person working for the Campaign may be a registered lobbyist or foreign agent, or receive compensation for any such activity.

But despite this published policy, in July 2008 it was clear that lobbyists are still welcome on his campaign staff:

Katie Couric asked Rick Davis, ostensibly McCain’s campaign manager, how many lobbyists work at campaign headquarters. “We don’t make it a litmus test for employment at the McCain campaign,” Davis said. “It goes without saying that some people who are involved in the lobbying profession do it because they are interested in that side of the equation. They’re interested in government, they’re interested in Congress, they’re interested in public service.

When Couric followed up by asking if the McCain campaign considers lobbyists “public servants,” Davis responded, “Well, I didn’t say that. How do you distinguish someone who lobbies, you know, on behalf of cancer from someone who lobbies on behalf of an oil interest. I wouldn’t call them the same thing but they’re still lobbyists.”