Official Senate portrait of Norm Coleman

Official Senate portrait of Norm Coleman

First, there was Doug Goodyear, who'd been tapped by the McCain campaign to oversee the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul this summer but quit after his paid lobbying for Myanmar was discovered. Next, there was another Doug, Doug Davenport, who quit his job with the McCain campaign after his lobbying for the Myanmar junta was discovered. Gee, those Dougs won't hunt.

Now, we find that none other than Norm Coleman's got his own Myanmar ties. As Minnesota Monitor's Andy Birkey reports:

The campaign of Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., took funds from the DCI Group, a lobbying group criticized for its dealings with the oppressive military regime of Myanmar, Federal Elections Commission records show. The Coleman campaign took $6000 from DCI Group senior leadership and partners and political action committee.

[...]

According to FEC records, Coleman took $1,000 from Goodyear himself; $1,000 from Angela Flood, DCI Group vice-president; and $2,000 from Justin Peterson, a DCI Group managing partner. Coleman's campaign received another $2,000 from the DCI Group Political Action Committee.

Of course, Norm can always say that he dealt with a firm that has clients besides the Burmese junta, and not with the junta itself. But the contribution from Goodyear, who was working the Myanmar account at DCI, indicates just why he was getting that money.

Norm rakes in
Myanmar dough
'Cuz he
can't live on
Blo and Go
Burma-Shave

Norm's not the only Minnesota Republican to take Myanmar money. Minnesota Monitor's got some news on Michele Bachmann's own Myanmar problem:

Freshman Rep. Michelle Bachmann received a $500 contribution from DCI Group partner Brian McCabe in 2006, according to Federal Election Commission Records. McCabe is also president of Progress for America, a conservative 527 group that spent roughly $45 million on advertising during the 2004 presidential campaign.

DCI Group has been under fire for its work lobbying on behalf of the despotic military junta in Myanmar. The man that John McCain tapped to run the Republican National Convention, Doug Goodyear, stepped down from the post after his DCI ties surfaced in Newsweek over the weekend. Doug Davenport, who was charged with heading up the McCain campaign in the mid-Atlantic states, also resigned owing to his work for the lobbying firm.

Wonder who else out there in the GOP has a Myanmar problem?

By the way: Norm's refusing to give back the Myanmar money. Joe Bodell at Minnesota Campaign Report thinks he might know why, and it has to do with the connections between Norm Coleman's campaign, DCI, and a shadowy outfit named "FLS Connect", which shares a street address in St. Paul with the Coleman campaign:

Yep, that's right -- FLSConnect.com is registered to an entity called "FLS-DCI" located in Oakdale, MN. Sourcewatch indicates that those first three letters stand for "Feather Larson Synhorst" -- Synhorst refers to the chairman of DCI, Thomas Synhorst, and Sourcewatch notes one of their specialties: "creating phony front groups to make it appear as if there's a groundswell of support for its clients' issues."

As Joe Bodell says, one wonders in how many cookie jars will we be finding these people's hands.