"There is a very soft underbelly to this entire story that leaves [MCain's] slam-dunk prediction completely compromised. All the while that McCain was talking up Ukraine as being a potential future hot spot on the Russian geopolitical horizon, Republican insider and political strategist Paul Manafort was deeply entrenched in Kiev. He was advising a Soviet apparatchik with strong Ukrainian-Russian mafia ties by the name of Victor Yanukovych; the very man who would become Ukraine’s president in 2010, the very same man whom Ukrainians sent packing out of the country in 2014 through an incredible three-month long protest against his authoritarianism and corruption.Before 2008, Yanukovych’s political party, called the Party of Regions, worked closely with a lobbying firm called Davis Manafort (out of Delaware) comprising of Rick Davis and Paul Manafort. In 2008 Rick Davis became McCain’s presidential campaign manager. Paul Manafort worked closely with Rick Davis for years as they own a lobbying firm together called Davis Manafort and Freedman (out of Arlington, Virginia). Back home in the U.S., Manafort himself wanted to chair the 2008 Republican Convention, but was rejected because of his heavyweight lobbyist reputation as a Washington insider. Manafort ran Bob Dole’s Republican Convention back in 1996." -- Mark Musser, American Thinker, March 7, 2014
Verrrry interesting...