The lobbyist, a partner at the firm Alcalde & Fay, represented telecommunications companies for whom Mr. McCain’s commerce committee was pivotal. Her clients contributed tens of thousands of dollars to his campaigns.

Mr. Black said Mr. McCain and Ms. Iseman were friends and nothing more. But in 1999 she began showing up so frequently in his offices and at campaign events that staff members took notice. One recalled asking, “Why is she always around?”

That February, Mr. McCain and Ms. Iseman attended a small fund-raising dinner with several clients at the Miami-area home of a cruise-line executive and then flew back to Washington along with a campaign aide on the corporate jet of one of her clients, Paxson Communications. By then, according to two former McCain associates, some of the senator’s advisers had grown so concerned that the relationship had become romantic that they took steps to intervene.

Iseman, Vicki
Lobbyist Profile, 2007

Lobbying Firm Alcalde & Fay


Client


Arison Family Trust (Micky Arison, CEO of Carnival Corporation)

BearingPoint Inc

CACI International

City of Miami, FL

Computer Sciences Corp

Homer-Center School District

Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Ion Media Networks

Jovan Broadcasting

Operation Warm

Saga Communications

Total Living Network

(Credit: Center for Responsive Politics)

Iseman, Vicki
Career Client List, 1998 - 2006


Client

American Maglev Technology

AMFM Inc

Arison Family Trust

AstraZeneca

BearingPoint Inc

CACI International

CanWest

Capstar Broadcasting Partners

Carnival Corp

City of Miami, FL

City of Palm Springs, CA

Click Radio

Computer Sciences Corp

Future Leaders of America

HFF Inc

Hillsborough County

Hispanic Broadcasting Inc

Homer-Center School District

i2Telecom International

Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Ion Media Networks

Jovan Broadcasting

Latona Assoc

Marin County, CA

National Stroke Assn

Operation Warm

Paxson Communications

PriceWaterhouseCoopers

Saga Communications

Sinclair Broadcast Group

Telemundo Network Group

Total Living Network

Tulare County

Univision Communications

Walter Industries

(Credit: Center for Responsive Politics)

Loophole Lets Lobbyists Hide Clients' Identity, July 5, 2002


.....In the 1990's, Congressional Democrats used Ted Arison, the founder of Carnival Cruise lines who saved millions in taxes by renouncing his United States citizenship and returning to Israel, as a case study of why the tax law should be rewritten. Mr. Arison was one of the richest men in the world when he died in 1999. A spokesman for the Carnival Corporation, whose chairman is Micky Arison, a son of Ted Arison's, referred questions about why the Arison family trusts had operated through the Section 877 Coalition to one of the lobbying firms, Alcalde & Fay.

At the firm, Hector Alcalde said he had listed the client as the Section 877 Coalition for ''simplicity's sake,'' because PricewaterhouseCoopers had already done so. ''There's no hidden agenda,'' Mr. Alcalde said.

.....

Carnival CEO defends cruise ship deal for hurricane evacuees, September 30, 2005


FORT LAUDERDALE (AP) — Carnival Corp. CEO Micky Arison defended his company's $236 million contract with the federal government to use cruise ships to house hurricane victims, denying reports Friday that the vessels were mostly empty.

U.S. Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., called it a "sweetheart" deal in a letter Thursday asking Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to explain the contract with the Miami-based company.

The senators alleged the contract guaranteed the Carnival Cruise Lines brand rates that were much higher than market levels.

.....

The senators also asked Chertoff to explain why the U.S. didn't accept Greece's offer to send two ships for free. Gov. Jeb Bush said those ships wouldn't have arrived until Oct. 10.

Bush said the contract might be an example of government waste, "but don't blame Carnival Cruise Lines for canceling cruise ships with 100,000 customers. That's their business."

"No good deed goes unpunished," Bush said ....

October 2, 2005

....."Many of the berths are going unfilled, which could make the cost per person extraordinarily high," wrote Waxman. "Even if all the berths were filled, the cost for a family of five appears to exceed $20,000 per month. "This would appear to be far more than other options, such as providing community-based housing."

Waxman asked Chertoff to provide copies of the contracts, requests for proposals and other documentation.

On September 27, U.S. Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) piled on.

The two senators are sponsoring legislation that would create a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to oversee all expenditures associated with the Hurricane Katrina relief and reconstruction effort.

.....

n a joint statement they said that "the Senate Federal Financial Management Subcommittee's investigation into a six-month $192 million FEMA contract with Carnival Cruise Lines has discovered that taxpayers are paying, per evacuee, four times the amount a vacation cruise passenger would have to pay. Three Carnival ships are only half full and mostly occupied by relief workers. Carnival's overhead costs in the FEMA operation are far lower than during normal cruises. The Carnival ships are docked. No fuel is being used and no entertainment is being provided to the relief workers. Yet, taxpayers are paying $2,550 per guest per week, which is four times the cost of a $599 per person '7 Day Western Caribbean' Cruise from Galveston."

"When the federal government would actually save millions of dollars by forgoing the status quo and actually sending evacuees on a luxurious six-month cruise it is time to rethink how we are conducting oversight. A short-term temporary solution has turned into a long-term, grossly overpriced sweetheart deal for a cruise line," Obama and Coburn said.

The FEMA contract has, however, found a defender in Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

Speaking to travel agents at an event in Fort Lauderdale he said critics who have labeled the (Carnival) contract a "sweetheart deal" are wrong, and that the charge could inhibit companies in Florida from stepping forward in the future if a similar hurricane situation develops there.

"There's some senators and politicians up there in Washington criticizing this and I think it's wrong," the Sun-Sentinel newspaper reports Bush as saying.

.....

McCain Lobbyist Story Has Tampa Connection, February 21, 2008


(Hector)Alcalde, who now lives in the Washington area, long has been prominent in Tampa politics. He was chief of staff for former U.S. Rep. Sam Gibbons of Tampa. He also was a graduate of the University of Tampa and member of the college's board and a prominent lobbyist who has represented local governments including Hillsborough County and Tampa. He is listed on the Arlington, Va.-based Alcalde & Fay's Web site as the firm's founder and chairman.

Despite his Democratic roots, in recent years Alcalde has contributed heavily to Republicans including former Gov. Jeb Bush, Gov. Charlie Crist, state Sen. Ronda Storms, Hillsborough County Commissioner Jim Norman, and U.S. Reps. Gus Bilirakis and Adam Putnam.

.....