The Blog

Meet Greg Craig, Obama Advisor

5:20 PM, May 19, 2008 • By MICHAEL GOLDFARB
Single Page Print Larger Text Smaller Text Alerts

McCain has ties to lobbyists who have represented some odious regimes, and he has since ushered them out of his campaign as he rightly should have. But Obama, well, he's one-upped McCain:

Craig is not a peripheral figure in the Obama campaign. He was among the earliest senior Washington figures urging Obama to run, and he participates fairly regularly in the planning and strategizing about major events, including the campaign's decisions to accept debates. He has also served as an on-and-off camera surrogate for McCain at propitious moments. Yes, there's a difference between being a lawyer and being a lobbyist; lobbyists represent a real or preceived conflict of interest. But Obama's campaign holds itself to a higher standard: why doesn't it make sense to make sure that senior campaign advisers are also not, for their dayjobs, representing (alleged) U.S. soldier killers?

Meanwhile, Obama continues to hammer away at McCain's ties to lobbyists. This may spin out of control as we all learn a shocking truth about politics: people have day jobs which often create conflicts of interest. Still, I'd say defending a man indicted for the murder of a U.S. soldier is considerably more problematic than having lobbied on behalf of the Burmese junta.

More by Michael Goldfarb

Update: Ed Morrissey has much, much more on Craig.