John McCain, Al Hoffman, and a business climate teetering on chaos... by gimleteye

Its website says, "WCI Communities is the premier national homebuilder of master-planned communities." As of today, it is also bankrupt. According to Reuters, " WCI Communities Inc (WCI.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said Monday that it and about 130 of its subsidiaries have filed voluntary petitions to restructure their debt under Chapter 11."

For Florida's civic and conservation activists, WCI Communities inflicted on the public interest a long and painfully slow death watch. But it wasn't just concrete pads in wetlands, or on Florida's beaches depriving the public of access; WCI Communities and its former chairman, Al Hoffman, corralled every two-bit developer and real estate wannabe in pumping up the biggest housing bubble in Florida history. Today, Hoffman is a key fund raiser for John McCain. But from the first, Hoffman was a Bush loyalist.

In the early 2000's, as billions of dollars were raked in by Florida developers exploiting the loosest regulatory environment in history, the public interest in protecting the water, bays, rivers, and Everglades of Florida was ground to dust. The carpetbaggers have all run off with their tens and hundreds of millions. It is blood money that John McCain, through finance chiefs like Hoffman, is tapping into.

So it is reasonable for John McCain, to do some explaining.

Hoffman, who left the scene of WCI a long time ago, was one of the strongest-- if not the strongest--cheerleader of the Bush revolution: he was campaign finance chair for both Jeb Bush campaigns as governor of Florida, and also, of W's campaign in 2000. He was rewarded with an ambassadorship to Portugal where he presumably engaged in the heavy lifting of US foreign relations with Lisbon.

In 2003, Hoffman crowed that suburban sprawl was "an unstoppable force". And in Florida, it was-- thanks to the sledgehammer wielded by land speculators and production home builders like Hoffman on behalf of the Growth Machine.

Hoffman, appointed by Bush to be chairman of the state's leading business group-- the Council of 100-- had such bright ideas as privatizing Florida's water supply and management; an idea that died when its chief corporate backer, Enron, disappeared in its own muck.

Today, Hoffman is a top fund raiser for John McCain.

McCain, whose advisors had included Phil Gramm-- the ex-US Senator from Texas who advocated loosening regulations governing the financial industry, needs to ask Hoffman, the former chairman of WCI Communities, a few questions.

The first would be: what other Florida Republicans, like US Senator Mel Martinez for instance, played a role in suppressing regulations governing mortgage origination, land use, and environmental protection in order for the homebuilders to get their way during the run-up of the biggest bubble in housing markets in US economic history?

Senator McCain, a good place to show accountability would be for you to take a closer look at the principal actors in the mortgage crisis, like WCI's Al Hoffman. There is no value to your campaign in embracing a key actor in the economic crisis afflicting so many voters.