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.

Mr. Obama sports dozens of policy advisers, some of whom are active lobbyists or work for lobbying firms. For instance, former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, special counsel to the Atlanta-based law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird, is one of Mr. Obama’s most prominent advisers and a national co-chairman of his campaign.

Former South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges, another co-chairman, founded the state-based lobbying firm Hodges Consulting Group. Deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand is a former lobbyist; Daniel Shapiro, a foreign-policy adviser, is registered to lobby on behalf of the American Petroleum Institute.

No one knows for sure how many lobbyists are unpaid campaign advisers because the Obama campaign will not release a list.

“What is Senator Obama hiding?” said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds. “In Senator Obama’s world, lobbyists can raise money and advise his campaign on policy issues, their families can contribute, but supposedly they have no role. It’s absurd.”

Yet unlike those recently connected to the McCain campaign, Obama advisers who are federally registered lobbyists are not paid by the campaign. In addition, Mr. Obama employs no current lobbyists as fundraisers, while, until the new policy went into effect, Mr. McCain did.

“The real big change is that McCain has decided to change course and come out with a policy that’s much closer to what Obama has had since the beginning of the campaign,” said Craig Holman of Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization.

Mr. Holman said that Mr. McCain’s policy still does not go as far as Mr. Obama’s, noting that the Republican continues to allow registered lobbyists to be bundlers for fundraising “as long as they’re not paid staff of the campaign,” while Mr. Obama does not.

Mr. McCain is walking a tightrope on the issue: He has crafted an image as a reformer ready to take on special interests and pork-barrel spending, but some of his highest-level staff are former lobbyists, giving Mr. Obama ammunition.

“The fact is, John McCain’s campaign is being run by Washington lobbyists and paid for by their money,” Mr. Obama said Monday in Billings, Mont.

But by changing course with nearly six months until Election Day, Mr. McCain can put his employment of lobbyists in the past. When the issue returns in the fall, as many observers expect, he can say he cleaned house months ago.

“The McCain campaign housekeeping now puts Obama’s world on the defense,” said Republican strategist Scott Reed. “This effort to tarnish the brand will not work, for the McCain team has cut all ties and brought in transparency. Obama will wish he never picked this fight.”