Real Americans and Lobbying

Former Rep. Thomas G. Loeffler resigns as national co-chair of John McCain's campaign rather than step down from his lobbying gigs. The most interesting part of the story is, I think, this blind quote:

“No one in real America cares,” said one key Republican. “But McCain cares.”

I think it's true that no one in real America cares about this per se. But real Americans do care about hypocrisy, so the fact that McCain has made anti-lobbyist crusading the center of his public persona means he'd damn well better care. The other thing is that in real American the Bush administration is horribly unpopular, the Republican Party is horribly unpopular, but John McCain remains reasonably well-liked. That's based on the perception that he's not a business as usual corrupt Republican, which means that when he gets caught acting like a business as usual corrupt Republican it's in his interests to move swiftly.

As for how much McCain really cares about this stuff, well let's say he doesn't care enough about keeping his campaign lobbyist-free to have avoided putting lobbyists in tons of key positions, but he does care enough to take action ex post when people complain.