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Only a few years ago, Democrats feared being frozen out of Washington’s lucrative lobby world.

Republicans, who controlled the White House and Congress, had launched the so-called ‘K Street Project’ to pressure companies, lobby firms and trade groups to hire only Republicans for top influence-peddling jobs.

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But times have changed: With Democrats ensconced in the White House and both houses of Congress, it is their operatives who are now being snapped up. And make no mistake: Bidding wars are occurring over folks with the right connections – people like former Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean, Obama campaign political director Matthew Nugen and Michael Paese, former deputy director of the House Financial Services Committee.

Howard Dean

No matter Barack Obama’s promise to reduce the influence of lobbyists. No matter the tanking economy.

“Barack Obama campaigned on change. Well, change is good for the lobbying business,” Ed Rogers, a former aide to President Ronald Reagan and now chairman of BGR Group, formerly Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, told the Washington Post. “People will need the expertise and guidance more in the next year than they have in the last five.”

After all, corporate clients who will be affected by Obama’s plans on energy, health care or taxes need people who know what’s on the table and how to become part of the discussion. Others are eager to get a piece of the economic stimulus bill.

And in the words of one seasoned Hill player, access is the key to power in Washington. And to get it, you need people who know the people in charge.

Consider these recent hires:

• Dean, the former DNC chairman, Vermont governor and presidential candidate, who once disparaged John McCain as “a guy who is very close to the lobbyist community,” has signed on with law and lobbying mega-firm McKenna Long & Aldridge as a consultant.
• Nugen, Obama’s former political director and a veteran Democratic operative, is now a “strategic adviser” with Ogilvy Government Relations.
• Jeff Berman, who directed Obama’s national delegate operation, has joined Bryan Cave as “of counsel.”
• Brian Wolff, the executive director of the House Democratic campaign committee and longtime political director to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, accepted a top position at the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), an investor-owned utility trade group which fought climate-change regulation in the past.
• Paese, who had been an aide to Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, and the deputy director of the House Financial Services Committee, became executive vice president of the Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association, the trade group.
• Jaime R. Harrison, who helped mobilize voter turnout for Obama in South Carolina, and for the past two years directed floor operations for House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), now with the Podesta Group.
• Patrick Von Bargen, a former chief of staff to Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and aide to William Donaldson, the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, went to Quinn Gillespie.

The lure of big salaries goes a long way to explaining the divide between campaign rhetoric and actual practice. So does a title that sidesteps the dread ‘L’ word.

David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times actually put a pricetag on the partisan transformation of the capital: Three years ago, an assistant department secretary leaving the Bush administration – with Republicans in control of the House, Senate and White House – might have fetched as much $600,000 to $1 million a year as a lobbyist, he quoted recruiters. That same person might now expect less than half as much.

But for Democrats, the bidding is fierce. Three years ago, a Democratic staff director for an important House or Senate committee might have earned about $130,000 a year on Capitol Hill, and jumped to K Street for an annual salary of about $250,000. Now, the same person might command as much as $500,000 to $800,000 a year, several recruiters said.

… For an industry that prefers to talk about selling policy expertise and sophisticated arguments, the turnabout is a stark reminder that what clients want are personal connections. “People who need to get something done know what the price of a drink is,” said Peter Metzger, vice chairman of the recruiting firm CT Partners. “This may sound terribly Washington, but access trumps expertise.”

It certainly makes a difference that many of the issues Obama has zeroed in on, such as health-care policy, energy and taxes, have implications for some of the lobbying world’s most free-spending corporate clients.

Von Bargen told the Washington Post that he joined Quinn Gillespie with the expectation that his knowledge of clean energy issues would be a strong asset.

“People who have labored in Democratic vineyards for years are familiar with the people involved, but also with the substantive issues, and how Democrats approach those issues,” he said.

Laura Sheehan, who recently became vice president of marketing and communications for the American Gas Association, had been policy director at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and a top aide to Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.).

“After the last election, when the House flipped, I got three to four serious job inquiries on election night just because of my party background,” she told the Post.

She did not take any of those positions then, but when the same thing happened again this year., decided to give it a shot.

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• Tom Daschle tapped for HHS – November 20, 2008
• A lobbyist by any other name would still smell like a lobbyist – September 18, 2008
• John Podesta and Cassandra Q. Butts oversee Obama’s transition – October 21, 2008
• Joe Lieberman’s donations to Democrats may help mend fences – November 13, 2008
• Does anti-trust nominee Varney have Google in her sights? – February 20, 2009
• How Democrats can lose the presidency – February 6, 2008
• Bernard Madoff cultivated ties to the Washington establishment – December 16, 2008