Obama Opens Lobbyists Door

Campaign Rhetoric: One of candidate Barack Obama's strongest pledges was that federal lobbyists would never have a job in the White House if he was elected president. Now that he is president-elect, lobbyists are welcome to work on his transition team under tight restrictions. The door is open and represents the first crack in the fissure between campaign promises and the real world of Washington politics which Obama railed against. John Podesta, a top transition aide to Obama and former President Clinton's chief of staff, said Tuesday in a statement: "If someone has lobbied in the last 12 months, they are prohibited from working in the fields of policy on which they lobbied." In a speech last November in Spartanburg, S.C, Obama said: "I have done more to take on lobbyists than any other candidate in this race.I don't take a dime of their money, and when I am president, they won't find a job in my White House." Podesta said federal lobbyists may not contribute financially to the transition. Obama's anti-lobbyist and John McCain's anti-earmarks tirades during the campaign drove me nuts. Neither can be eliminated: lobbying for First Amendment purposes; earmarks for pragmatic political reasons. But, they can be restrained. No doubt Obama will try. And, for good reason. During the Bush administration federal lobbyists, known as the K Street Gang where most held their offices, increased from 18,854 in 2001 to 35,844 in 2006, the last year numbers were available. That's about 56 lobbyists for every House and Senate member plus the president. It's too early in the transition to know whether the new lobbyist policy will be extended to the Obama White House. The dilemma of this policy is that it shrinks the work pool of potentially terrific movers and shakers. A president needs the best minds available and -- like it or not -- some are lobbyists.