TPM Election Central | Talking Points Memo | McCain's Embattled Campaign Manager Skips Lunch With Reporters : "McCain's Embattled Campaign Manager Skips Lunch With Reporters By Greg Sargent - September 24, 2008, 12:19PM The New York Times, under fire from the McCain camp over an earlier piece probing McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, responded today with a second piece that hits Davis very hard, reporting that Davis' lobbying firm received a monthly sum of $15,000 from Freddie Mac up until last month. Now comes word that Davis has quietly canceled a gathering he was supposed to hold with reporters today. Coincidence? Hard to know. But more broadly, the question is, At what point do the repeated revelations about Davis render him more of a liability to McCain than an asset? Davis is a bit of a throwback in McCain's universe. He's been a longtime confidante to McCain; he managed McCain's 2000 insurgent campaign against George W. Bush, and isn't really a...