McCain purge of lobbyists strategic

The McCain campaign’s housecleaning of lobbyists is designed to strip away an issue easily targeted by Democrats, and even open a general-election line of attack by Republicans against Sen. Barack Obama’s own ties to Washington insiders.

By repeatedly trumpeting Sen. John McCain’s ties to lobbyists, Mr. Obama is forcing his own ties into the spotlight, said Dan Schnur, a former McCain aide.

“The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee better be as clean as a whistle on this front, or they’re going to be dealing with exactly the same problem,” he said. By pushing active lobbyists out of his campaign now, Mr. McCain is going to be able to “talk about how he’s cleaned up his campaign,” Mr. Schnur said.

Mr. McCain’s new policy, enacted last week, prohibits any campaign staffer from being a currently registered lobbyist or foreign agent. Part-time, unpaid volunteers for the campaign must disclose whether they are registered lobbyists or lobbying on behalf of foreign entities.

“We have enacted the most comprehensive and most transparent policy concerning lobbyist activities, and I challenge Senator Obama to adopt a similar policy,” the Arizona senator said.

The McCain move came after reports in The Washington Times and other newspapers about lobbying work by several of Mr. McCain’s top paid advisers. Sen. Barack Obama has hammered Mr. McCain in recent days over the four-term senator’s ties to Washington insiders.

“We’re not gonna take money from federally registered lobbyists, because we want to be accountable to the American people,” Mr. Obama said in Oregon last week, shortly after former Rep. Thomas G. Loeffler became the fifth McCain official to resign over his lobbying ties.

And while Mr. McCain has pushed out current lobbyists, he has no intention of ridding his campaign of former lobbyists. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, is a former lobbyist now on leave from his firm, and senior adviser Charlie Black is another one-time lobbyist who left his firm to join the campaign.

While the liberal advocacy group moveon.org has called for Mr. McCain to fire Mr. Black, the McCain adviser said with a laugh, “The one guy who gets a vote doesn’t want me going anywhere.”

But the Democratic presidential candidate has plenty of current lobbyists advising his campaign, and he has a slew of former lobbyists collecting cash. His fundraising team also includes dozens of members of law firms that were paid nearly $140 million last year to lobby Washington lawmakers.

While Mr. Obama does not take money from currently registered federal lobbyists, he does accept contributions from state lobbyists and corporate executives with interests before Congress. Former lobbyists also work for him as “bundlers,” raising cash for him, and they can contribute to his election campaign and hold fundraisers.

The Obama campaign said that despite Mr. McCain’s new policy, there is a clear distinction between the two.

“Senator McCain accepts money from federal lobbyists,” Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said. “He allows federal lobbyists to bundle money for him, and many top lobbyists are running his campaign. I think it’s a pretty clear distinction, no?”

Still, others said that should Mr. McCain face Mr. Obama as expected in the general election, the Republican could deflect criticism by pointing to his opponent’s policy.

“McCain’s answer to Obama could be, ‘Well, you say you’re not accepting money from lobbyists, but you’re accepting money from people who employ lobbyists or used to be lobbyists,” said Steven Weissman, associate director of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute.

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