Oh no! We can’t let Romney win, he’ll let lobbyists in the White House!!!
By Timothy P. Carney | October 16, 2012 | Washington Examiner
If Romney wins, will lobbyists defile the White House that Obama has kept so clean and so pure? That’s what Politico suggests with this piece today headlined “Lobbyists ready for a comeback under Romney.”
President Barack Obama’s gone further than any president to keep lobbyists out of the White House — even signing executive orders to do it.
In crafting and signing those executive orders, I wonder if Obama relied on the help of White House deputy counsel Cassandra Butts (1), White House special assistant Martha Coven (2), or the chief of staff or the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, Michael Strautmanis (3), all of whom were registered lobbyists. (I’m only numbering registered lobbyists.)
Politico’s Anna Palmer reports:
Industry insiders believe that Mitt Romney will unshackle the revolving door and give lobbyists a shot at the government jobs their Democratic counterparts have been denied for the past four years
Yeah, I bet those Republican lobbyists will get envious stares from the likes of Fannie Mae, Cigna, Credit Suisse lobbyist Laricke Blanchard (4), whom Obama named deputy director of policy for the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. Former teachers union lobbyist Gabriella Gomez (5) would be jealous – if her job as assistant secretary of Education gave her the time for such self-indulgence. Former crop-industry lobbyist Krysta Harden (6) must be thinking “why couldn’t I get a government job – besides my job as assistant secretary of Agriculture.”
Palmer writes of the possibility of Romney
“Allowing lobbyists back into the White House”
You mean after he kicks out the lobbyists in Obama’s White House like Patton Boggs lobbyist Emmett Beliveau (7), O’Melveny & Myers lobbyist Derek Douglas (8), and Pfizer’s, AT&T’s lobbyist at Akin Gump Dana Singiser (9)?
Romney would have to toss out Obama’s orders, which shook up how President George W. Bush did business and let Obama claim his agenda wouldn’t be hijacked by special interests.
Yes, it let Obama claim that – falsely. Remember how the stimulus was a pork fest for K Street? Remember how the drug lobby wrote much of Obamacare. Remember how Obama gave Chrysler to the UAW? Remember – oh, I could go on, but I’ll return to the Politico piece...
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