WASHINGTON — Aides to Sen. John McCain confronted a telecommunications lobbyist in late 1999 and asked her to distance herself from the senator during the presidential campaign he was about to launch, according to one of McCain's longest-serving political strategists.

John Weaver, who was McCain's closest confidant until leaving his current campaign last year, said he met with Vicki Iseman at the Center Cafe at Union Station and urged her to stay away from McCain. Association with a lobbyist would undermine his image as an opponent of special interests, aides had concluded.

Members of the senator's small circle of advisers also confronted McCain directly, according to sources, warning him that his continued ties to a lobbyist who had business before the powerful commerce committee he chaired threatened to derail his presidential ambitions.

The New York Times published a lengthy article on its Web site last night detailing McCain's ties to Iseman. "It's a shame that the New York Times has chosen to smear John McCain like this," said Charles R. Black Jr., a top adviser to McCain's current presidential campaign and the head of a Washington lobbying firm called BKSH & Associates. "Neither Sen. McCain nor the campaign will dignify false rumors and gossip by responding to them. John McCain has never done favors for anyone, not lobbyists or any special interest. That's a clear 24-year record."

The McCain team issued a statement last night decrying "gutter politics" and saying the story — which had been reported on the Drudge Report Web site in December — was a "a hit and run smear campaign."

Iseman, 40, who joined the Arlington, Va.-based firm of Alcalde & Fay as a secretary and rose to partner within a few years, often touted her access to the chairman of the Senate commerce committee as she worked on behalf of clients such as Cablevision, EchoStar and Tribune Broadcasting, according to several other lobbyists who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

McCain, after his unsuccessful 2000 campaign, has emerged as the front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. His reputation as a crusader for Washington reform — forged during almost 30 years in the Senate — is largely based on his stinging critiques of the role played by lobbyists. He routinely decries earmarks, or special pork projects inserted into legislation. He has claimed repeatedly that he has "never, ever" done a favor for anyone. It was this reputation that McCain's closest aides sought to protect.

"We were running a campaign about reforming Washington, and her showing up at events and saying she had close ties to McCain was harmful," said one aide.

The aide said the message to Iseman that day at Union Station in 1999 was clear: "She should get lost." The aide said Iseman left angrily.

Iseman could not be reached at her home or office last night. But in the Times story, Iseman wrote in an e-mail that "I never discussed with him alleged things I had 'told people,' that had made their way 'back to' him." The Times reported that she said she never received special treatment from McCain or his office.