Obama should have paid more attention to Hillary's mistakes in the primary. Hillary lost to him because she went after him on issues where she was liable to get clobbered by the facts.

Obama is no saint on the lobbyist issue, so by going after McCain on it on such a level, he is courting disaster.

Obama, in the pocket of BIG PUERTO RICO!!!!

A "lobbyist" for a U.S. territory and an advertising/PR executive? The horror.

I am a supporter of Obama and have defended comments by Axelrod on these pages. Nevertheless, a lobbyist is a lobbyist: by virtue of their existence they undermine the non-lobbyist-represented citizens of this country. "Making ads" is part and parcel of the lobbying effort that is destroying this nation like a virus gone amok.

Axelrod may see no distinction but I do. As for the "active volunteer," or "unpaid" staffer, please. McCain's mouthpieces say the same about Charlie Black and others (and here I'm thinking of Phil Gramm). While working for "Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison and other clients," Axelrod says that the difference between he and guys like (presumably) Black is that "lobbyists ... go behind closed doors and try to influence lawmakers sometimes with implied promises of support for their campaign." Lobbying is what it is. It seeks to manipulate and distort while lining the pockets of the manipulators and distorters. We need no more of that.

I am from Illinois and an Obama supporter. None the less I found those CORE ads highly deceitful and would like an explanation as to why a person I've regarded as having more integrity than most in politics, you, would have any thing to do with something like this.

Hillary is our champion. She lies, cheats, and steals. Now that we're used to that sort of behavior from our representatives, it's really no big deal.

The difference that I can see, is that none of the named Obama lobbyists are writing their backers policy positions directly into his campaigns policy.

See McCain and the whole sub prime mortgage guy for HSU who is writing his fiscal policy directly into McCains campaign.

The issue with McCain is that he has consistently backed legislation that favors lobbyists who have given him money. Right?

And the issue with Obama is...that he knows lobbyists personally and sometimes works with people who work with lobbyists?

I like how the headline for this article is a question. You can pretty much say anything you want after a question mark headline.

Even if the answer is 'no', by simply asking a question, drawing false parallels, and insinuating using guilt by association, you seem to have thrown mud at a candidate.

I guess the problem is that Obama's chief strategist is somebody...who has experience with political advertising?

I mean, really!

and when the Messiahbama comes, you will all pay.

I know this borders on being heretical and un-American, but I don't care about lobbyists. Lobbyists represent so-called special interests which represent individuals and businesses. Who are these individuals and businesses? They are us and we are them.

Sierra Club? Special interest. Big Oil? Special interest. AARP? Special interest. Plaintiffs bar? Special interest. Big Pharm? Special interest. Unions are special interests, just like the companies their members work for. Any group seeking to get out of Iraq is a special interest, along with weapons manufacturers.

To the extent there are "general interests" -- say, safety, education, prosperity -- those concepts mean vastly different things to different people. To put any of those vague concepts into practice requires that some people's actual interests will lose out to other people's actual interests.

If you do not organize with others who share similar political goals, don't blame special interests -- blame yourself. How else are our representatives supposed to know that you give a hoot about Spotted Owls or clean sources of energy or Social Security or whatever floats your boat? If you are not organized, you simply cannot achieve your goals in a representative democracy.

Funny, the only people refering to Obama as The Messiah are those who are critical of him.

Nice strawman arguement there, guys.

If I remember correctly, David Axelrod was also a consultant to Exelon, the nuclear waste dumper. The connection is important because:

1) Exelon was the largest contributor to Obama's presidential campaign with something like 44 Exelon executives donating and

2) Obama watered down and then killed legislation to regulate nuclear waste dumping and

3) Obama apparently lied and said there was no conflict in the Exelon donations because he passed legislation to regulate Exelon's secret waste dumping.

If anyone cares about the bias in press coverage, the Exelon issue is an interesting case study. Obama's lies about Exelon appeared on the front page of the NYT's but got virtually no coverage elsewhere in the MSM, drowned out by Snipergate.

On a tangential note, an article by the Post early in the campaign revealed how several lobbyists working for Obama hid their affiliations.

Lobbyists represent so-called special interests which represent individuals and businesses. Who are these individuals and businesses? They are us and we are them.

I disagree. Sure, there are lots of lobbyists who represent interests other than big business, but how much influence do they really have? Do legislators listen as carefully to a Sierra Club lobbyist as they would to an oil industry lobbyist? I don't think so. Look at the legislative record. Big business is constantly getting big favors from congress.

yeah, really, a bunch of college student lefties are going to raise more than K-street did for McCain.

well those of us who knew were in fact trying to tell ya, but we got shouted down by the obamazombie trolls who are just now having their "oh sh*t" moment as the electoral map looks worse for obama than it did for gore and kerry even AFTER four dollar a gallon gas and eight years of george w. bush.

So now the 'zombies are getting a glimpse of what's underneath the veneer of the Messiah. Pity. But it seems like one hell of a time to finally do it.

Sometimes mother and father really DO know best.