Time for our favorite recurring series at Cliff Schecter's Campaign Silo. We don't do it every day, as the title would imply, but only when the mood strikes and it feels right. Now is one of those times.

So here you go from my book The Real McCain (only $10 at Amazon)--and do make sure to note that every time you buy a copy an angel get's his/her wings:

Another McCain ally is former campaign manager Terry Nelson. Nelson was let go because he wasn't performing well, not because of his role in at least three Republican scandals: Tom DeLay's money laundering schemes in Texas, the phone jamming scandal perpetuated in 2002 to help Senator John Sununu win an open seat Senate race against then-Governor Jeanne Shaheen, and the various doings of Jack Abramoff.

Nelson was the man who approved the racist television ads used by the Republican National Committee against Congressman Harold Ford Jr. in his attempt to become a U.S. Senator from Tennessee in 2006. To play on white fears of miscegenation (a longtime GOP ploy), Nelson implied that Ford was bedding young white women. The ads were so offensive that Wal-Mart told Nelson's firm it would never again produce Wal-Mart's advertising campaigns.

So there you have it. John McCain, knowing full well about Nelson's connections to virtually every GOP electoral scandal of the past half decade and the criminal behavior of Jack Abramoff--not to mention the kind of ads the North Carolina GOP would love when they need a fill in for Jeremiah Wright--chose to make him his campaign manager.

A reformer indeed.