Democrats hit McCain fund-raiser

Democrats are incessantly hammering John McCain over a Texas money man, Clayton Williams, who notoriously compared rape to bad weather in an off-color quip during a 1990 campaign against Governor Ann Richards.

According to various media reports, McCain's campaign initially cancelled the fund-raising event, scheduled for today. Then, it said it would keep the $300,000-plus that Williams had raised, saying it had come from supporters, not the oilman himself. Then, the campaign said the event had been postponed, not entirely cancelled. The latest is that the event will happen, only without Williams, who said in 1990 about rape: "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

At his press availability today, McCain said his staff didn't know about that comment by Williams before scheduling the fund-raiser.

“Instead of doing the right thing by denouncing Clayton Williams’s widely known and deeply offensive comments about women, Senator McCain once again chose to put his political ambitions ahead of his principles," Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney said in a statement.

"Williams’ shameful history was readily available to anyone willing to do a 30-second online search. McCain’s silence on these comments, his willingness to keep the money Clayton Williams steered to his campaign, and the fact that McCain plans to go back and hold this fund-raiser when he hopes no one is watching are all part of the reason the American people are seeing through McCain’s image as a so-called ‘maverick.’ ”