By means of a handy $20,000 being slipped to him by Russell Arundel, Pepsi's Washington lobbyist, McCarthy was inspired to help end the sugar rationing six months before originally scheduled, thus nullifying the USDA's demands. (Anderson, Pg 128-136).
McCarthy then noticed that he was to go up for re-election in 1952 and he needed a new subject on which to base his career upon. According Richard Rovere's book "senator Joe McCarthy: He found his next subject at the night of January 7, 1950, at the Colony Restaurant in Washington, D. C. Among his dinner guests was Father Edmund A. Walsh. McCarthy talked with his guests for a while before bringing up the subject of the need for an issue. The group discarded quite a few before choosing Communism, which was suggested by Walsh, who was an ardent anti-Red. "That's it," McCarthy said. "The government is full of Communists. We can hammer away at them." (Rovere, pg 122-123).
McCarthy's timing couldn't have been better. By the time he made his first speech the Alger Hiss trial was at its peak and in his communist hinting career were the convictions and executions of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. His first speech concerning this issue was on February 9th in West Virginia. The speech is as follows: "I have in my hand a list of 205 cases of individuals who appear to be either card-carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party." (http://www.em.doe.gov/timeline/feb1950.html).
McCarthy knew how to handle the press. Headlines ran in newspapers from coast to coast making him known all over the nation as the biggest enemy to communism. Once that happened the money came pouring in. People sent in as much as 10,000 dollar donations to him. He would continuously send postcards to the donators thanking them and asking for more money to "keep up the hard and costly struggle against communism- As it turns out, the fight against Communism was quite inexpensive, and most of the money went into his bank account and then into soybean futures or horse race bets (Rovere, Pg 142-143) People would have probably said something but at the time if you accused him of wrongdoing you would have been labeled a communist.
