Word: tobacco
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...figure made Moore nervous too. McCain and the White House wanted nearly twice as much as the 68[cents] he had originally negotiated, raising the cost of the deal at least $138 billion. Since McCain had barred the tobacco companies from the negotiations, Moore and the other AGs found themselves serving as reluctant surrogates. The AGs feared that the hike was a backbreaker that would cause R.J. Reynolds, the most vulnerable of the Big Five, to pull out. But McCain was able to reassure them that RJR could handle the costs...
McCain also needed the support of the committee's ranking Democrat, Ernest Hollings, the six-term Senator from tobacco-friendly South Carolina. Hollings, 76, is up for re-election this year in what has become one of the most reliably Republican states in the Union. For him, backing any anti-tobacco bill is perilous. But Hollings believes in the goal of stopping kids from smoking. After a meeting on March 25, he agreed to support McCain's bill. In return, McCain will fly to South Carolina this week to explain the deal to a meeting of 4,000 tobacco farmers...
Late the following night, negotiations dissolved into a shouting match over the thorny question of how much, if any, protection from lawsuits to give tobacco companies in return for their agreement to all but eliminate cigarette advertising and marketing. One negotiator, who wanted the industry protected from class-action suits, kicked over a chair in frustration. He lost. McCain, meanwhile, worked diligently to keep allies from bolting. At one point, he called Democratic committee member John Kerry to apologize for a staff member's brush-off. "I'm deeply embarrassed," McCain told Kerry, a fellow Vietnam vet. "You do play...
...word of a deal spread, Republicans started balking. Did you agree to a bill that would bankrupt the tobacco industry? House Speaker Newt Gingrich wanted to know. "Newt, I know you're hearing that we've gone crazy over here on tobacco legislation, but I want to assure you it's O.K.," McCain told him. And when White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles called to fret that McCain was losing the public health community, McCain said, "Erskine, we are working on that as we speak...
...committee all but ignored protests from cigarette manufacturers. Despite giving more than $12 million since 1995 to the Republican Party and G.O.P. candidates and spending record sums on Ermenegildo Zegna-clad lawyers, the once mighty tobacco lobby has lost almost all its clout in Congress. Quipped a G.O.P. fund raiser: "Twelve million doesn't buy what it used to." McCain wasn't so sympathetic either. He was convinced that once the companies realized that the deal would only get worse for them the longer they held out, they would come aboard. Not that the fight is over. "Keep a steady...