McCain and lobbyists

John McCain's campaign is not only tied to lobbyists, it is lobbyists. Or at least it will be until all the lobbyists quit. Then he won't have a campaign.

For a while I thought that a McCain administration would be pretty much the same as the Bush administration. Now it seems it will be even more of the same.

This pattern of interchangeability of lobbyists, campaign staff, and administration officials is part of the problem in Washington. (The lobbyists raise the campaign funds.) It works OK for a while, but the narrow interests are ultimately too narrow and the lobbyist-driven campaign's and government's ability to understand the mood and reality of the country gets weaker and weaker. Polls help, but are really not a substitute. Hilary may have been the best of the lot among the the candidates who represented these practices the past 30 years or so. Thus the centrality of Mark Penn to her campaign and its failure. But ultimately her campaign didn't read the country's reality and mood well enough and respond fast enough because the old style was part of its DNA.

Obama's organizing and fund raising was different. Obama's fund raising from many - in small amounts - may be one of the foundations for an administration that really is different. More on that later.