This is just too good to be true.  No excerpt this time (although emphasis has been added).

Read it and weep.

From The Boston Globe, October 10, 2007

Private-equity lobbyist to join Obama

The presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama of Illinois sent out a statement yesterday lamenting a report that the Senate was unlikely to pass a bill to raise the tax rate on private-equity firm executives.

"If there was ever a doubt that Washington lobbyists don't actually represent real Americans, it's the fact that they stopped leaders of both parties from requiring elite investment firms to pay their fair share of taxes, even as middle-class families struggle to pay theirs," said Obama, the first candidate to put out such a statement.

But one of those Washington lobbyists paid to derail the bill is set to join Obama's campaign as a senior adviser.

Moses Mercado, a longtime Democratic operative who has been a senior vice president for Ogilvy Government Relations, lobbied Congress and the Bush administration this year on behalf of two large private-equity firms, the Blackstone Group and the Carlyle Group, lobbyist registration documents filed with the US Senate said. The Blackstone Group reported paying Ogilvy $3.7 million so far this year, while the Carlyle Group has paid the firm $260,000.

Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in an e-mail, "Senator Obama has a consistent record of standing up to special interests by helping pass sweeping ethics and lobbying reforms as a state senator in Illinois and as a US senator in Washington and he will continue to lead when he is in the White House."

Obama's campaign says Mercado will not join the campaign until he has ceased his lobbying work.

Obama and other critics of the current tax structure for private-equity firms say that executives unfairly reap millions by having some of their earnings taxed as capital gains at a far lower rate than regular income. But the industry has battled a tax overhaul mightily, saying such a major shift would damage the economy.

>>>  Yikes.  Dead candidate walking.   <<<

ASK OBAMA TO HAVE HIS HEAD EXAMINED