McCain’s Beer

The take-over battle being fought for the brewery concern Anheuser-Busch has a particularly political component. It’s giving presidential candidate John McCain explanation problems.

Patriotic Americans from every camp have been uniting for weeks behind beer brewer Anheuser-Busch. The reason: international rival Inbev is trying to buy the national icon. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is therefore criticizing the plans just as strenuously as the politicians of both parties. The fact that a traditionally American concern like Anheuser-Busch could fall into foreign hands is causing fears that the American economy is in danger of being sold out.

One central figure from the conservative camp is, however, noticeably silent in the debate: Republican presidential candidate John McCain. But there’s a certain consistency in that. For the last several years, McCain has often declared himself biased in any Senate debate on alcohol.

Inbev’s offensive is pulling John McCain’s juicy conflict of interest suddenly into the foreground just months before the presidential election. Cindy McCain, the Arizona senator’s wife, earns a lot of money from beer. She is Chairman of the Board of Hensley & Co., a large Anheuser-Busch wholesaler founded by her father. The company’s turnover of Anheuser-Busch products is worth $300 million a year. About 68 percent of the company is in her family’s hands and she personally owns more than one million dollars worth of Anheuser-Busch stock.

A huge dilemma

It will be up to the woman who wants to become America’s next First Lady whether or not Inbev’s offer is successful. The proceeds from such a sale could be enormously helpful to her husband who is up against Democratic opponent Barack Obama’s fund raising machine.

But public debate of the sale is already becoming a huge dilemma for McCain. Anti-alcohol activists have made McCain’s holdings in Hensley and Anheuser-Busch their own issue: “the big question is, how much access will the brewing industry have to the White House,” asks Bruce Livingston, head of the non-profit Marin Institute. “One would expect the President and First Lady to be concerned about alcohol abuse and alcoholism.” And, in fact, the question of a company like Hensley being directed from the White House is unprecedented in American history.

But there is one small consolation for the Republican Senator: His rival, Barack Obama, is proud of the fact that he has the support of mega-investor Warren Buffet. Buffet is the second largest stockholder in Anheuser-Busch and he will have to take sides on the take-over bid question sooner or later.