Big Oil Gives Money to McCain and McCain Call for more Drilling

John McCain's call for more offshore drilling has resulted in an influx of oil money to his campaign coffers, as we
reported earlier this week. Yesterday, Campaign Money Watch put out a comprehensive report [PDF] on just how much
much money Big Oil has been sending to the GOP candidate, and how it compares to his previous donations from oil
interests.

• In Texas alone, June oil and gas-connected donations to McCain's Victory '08 Fund, his hybrid fundraising venture with
the RNC and state committees, reached $1,214,100. Of that total, $881,450, or 73 percent, came after June 15. McCain
announced his position in favor of offshore drilling on June 16.

• All over the country, oil industry donors wrote large checks to the joint fundraising account in the wake of the reversal
on drilling policy. Oil executives and their spouses from Colorado, Mississippi, Louisiana, California, Indiana, and Florida
gave donations between $5,000 and $100,000. The major outpouring of donations outside of Texas came from oil giant
Hess, whose executives and family members from New York and New Jersey gave $285,000 within a week of McCain's
Texas swing, with ten donors all maxing out to the RNC with identical $28,500 donations.

• These new totals dwarf his previous fundraising from the industry. From 1989 through May 2008, John McCain had
raised more than $1.3 million from the oil and gas industries, and 33 McCain staffers and fundraisers have received a
total of $9.65 million in lobbying fees from the same sectors.

According to the report, McCain has received seven times more money from the industry during the 2008 election cycle
than he did during his 2000 presidential bid, when he opposed offshore drilling.