On the run today. But I just broke a story with my colleague Jonathan Stein: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's chief of staff--a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist--lobbied against a bill to curb CEO pay. And guess who introduced the bill. Yes, Barack Obama, when he was a senator. That is, a Washington influence-peddler named Mark Patterson who worked against Obama's effort to limit excessive corporate pay is now a key member of the Obama administration team that is supposed to contain excessive compensation in the AIG case and in general. Talk about the revolving door spinning wildly.

When Patterson's appointment was announced, good-government groups grumbled about placing a Wall Street lobbyist in a senior post at Treasury, and the White House had to grant Patterson a waiver from its new and strict ethics rules prohibiting lobbyists from obtaining jobs in areas related to their lobbying work. There's no telling if Patterson's previous endeavors for Goldman Sachs have unduly or improperly influenced his actions at Treasury. But it may be hard for some folks to understand how one can go from working against a policy as a lobbyist to working for the same policy as a senior administration official. Patterson presumably is toiling alongside Geithner these days to recover the AIG bonuses and to establish wide-ranging limits on corporate compensation elsewhere.

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As regular readers can tell from the past few days, I've been fixated on a point: as mega-finance firms fail, it's absurd for McCain to beat on Wall Street when his campaign is chockfull of corporate lobbyists (past and present) who have been paid lots of money to rig the system for Big Finance firms. And that includes UBS executive and McCain adviser Phil Gramm, who, as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, pulled a backroom legislative stunt in 2000 to make sure that credit default swaps--a certain financial instrument that helped pave the way to the subprime meltdown--would remain completely unregulated.

The nice thing about having an obsession and being head of a Washington bureau is that you can assign reporters to stories. So I asked Jonathan Stein and Nick Baumann, two colleagues of mine at Mother Jones, to go through a list of 177 lobbyists working for the McCain campaign and find those who have been influence-peddlers for financial firms. They did and discovered that over 80 of these lobbyists have been game-riggers for financial corporations. Consequently, we had a story to post:

In the past few days, as the economic crisis has deepened, Senator John McCain has been decrying the excesses of Wall Street. At a campaign rally in Tampa on Tuesday, he vowed that he and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, if elected, "are going to put an end to the reckless conduct, corruption, and unbridled greed that have caused a crisis on Wall Street." He noted that the "foundation of our economy...has been put at risk by the greed and mismanagement of Wall Street and Washington."

He blasted CEOs who "seem to escape the consequences." He denounced Wall Streeters who "dreamed up investment schemes that they themselves don't even understand" and who used "derivatives, credit default swaps, and mortgage-backed securities" to try "to make their own rules." He excoriated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for gaming the system. And he slammed financial industry lobbyists for misguiding members of Congress. "I can promise you the days of dealing and special favors will soon be over in Washington." On Wednesday morning, after the federal government committed $85 billion to prevent the collapse of the American International Group (AIG) insurance conglomerate, McCain again assailed irresponsible corporate executives. "We need to change the way Washington and Wall Street does business," he proclaimed.

McCain has been quick with fiery, populist-tinged speeches. But one thing has been missing: any acknowledgment that McCain's own campaign has been loaded with the type of people he's been denouncing. As Mother Jones previously reported, former Senator Phil Gramm, McCain's onetime campaign chairman, used a backroom maneuver in late 2000 to slip into law a bill that kept credit default swaps unregulated. These financial instruments greased the way to the subprime meltdown that has led to today's economic crisis. Several of McCain's most senior campaign aides have lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And the Democratic National Committee, using publicly available records, has identified 177 lobbyists working for the McCain campaign as either aides, policy advisers, or fundraisers.

Of those 177 lobbyists, according to a Mother Jones review of Senate and House records, at least 83 have in recent years lobbied for the financial industry McCain now attacks. These are high-paid influence-peddlers who have been working the corridors of the nation's capital to win favors and special treatment for investment banks, securities firms, hedge funds, accounting outfits, and insurance companies. Their clients have included AIG, the newest symbol of corporate excess; Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy on Monday sending the stock market into a tailspin; Merrill Lynch, which was bought out by Bank of America this week; and Washington Mutual, the banking giant that could be the next to fall. Among these 83 lobbyists are McCain's chief political adviser, Charlie Black (JP Morgan, Washington Mutual Bank,, Freddie Mac, Mortgage Bankers Association of America); McCain's national finance co-chairman, Wayne Berman (AIG, Blackstone, Credit Suisse, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac); the campaign's congressional liaison, John Green (Carlyle Group, Citigroup, Icahn Associates, Fannie Mae); McCain's veep vetter, Arthur Culvahouse (Fannie Mae); and McCain's transition planning chief, William Timmons Sr. (Citigroup, Freddie Mac, Vanguard Group).

When cable news shows air footage of McCain railing against greedy execs and the lobbyists who rig the rules for the benefit of Wall Street dealmakers, there ought to be a crawl beneath him listing these lobbyists. (Talk about a fair and balanced presentation.) Short of that, here's the list of the McCain aides and bundlers who have worked for the high-finance greed-mongers McCain has pledged to take on. So far, it seems, none of them have been cast out of the campaign. If McCain were serious about his outrage, he might throw these money-changers out of his own temple.

To see that list, click here.

It is almost literally unbelievable.

John McCain, responding to the current economic troubles, says that "Wall Street has betrayed us." He calls the current mess the "result of excess and greed and corruption." He adds,

We've got to make sure that people like Fannie and Freddie, organizations such as Fannie and Freddie, never have the influence again that they had in Washington. You saw it, Joe. The old boy network -- Republicans, Democrats, they had influence with everybody. So therefore, we didn't act to have the sufficient oversight while these organizations grew and grew and became the corrupt institutions that they are today."

Old boy network? Influence? Can't McCain smell the stench of old-boy influence-peddling every time he enters his campaign headquarters? As I noted yesterday, several of McCain's top campaign aides lobbied for Fannie and Freddie. His campaign overall has at least 177 lobbyists working for his campaign. These are people who get paid large amounts of money to win special treatment for corporate interests, public interest be damned.

Then there's Phil Gramm, the onetime chairman of McCain's campaign. As I explained elsewhere, when Gramm chaired the Senate banking committee in 2000, he slipped into a massive must-pass spending bill a piece of legislation totally deregulating the the market for credit default swaps, a little-understood financial instrument. The swaps market then exploded, and the rampant use of unregulated swaps--which function kind of like insurance policies for big financial institutions--helped grease the way for the subprime meltdown.

So whose greed and excess is McCain now decrying? It is the greed and excess of some of the people who have helped run his campaign. His denunciation of influence peddlers, asleep-at-the-switch regulators, and me-first CEOs is absurd, given his own ties to these folks. His most prominent economic policy surrogate is Carly Fiorina, who pocketed $42 million in severance pay and other goodies when she was forced out as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. The question is, how long can McCain get away with this?

Obama has a slight but narrowing edge in the polls when voters are asked who's best able to handle the economy. It's certainly obvious that voters don't review the details of each presidential candidate's economic policy before deciding whom they want in the driver's seat when the economy heads into a ditch. Many voters pick a favorite based on impressions. Right now, McCain is sounding a more populist tone than Obama, whose strategy seems to be to portray McCain as too tied to George W. Bush and too out of touch to be trusted with this hurting economy. So even with McCain stumbling (by declaring the "fundamentals" are strong), McCain looks more like the fighter, the guy who's ready to knock heads together--the heads of the greedy SOBs responsible for this mess--and get things going again with a healthy dose of reform. It's phony populism. It's like the head of a Mafia family decrying a crime wave caused by his own lieutenants. But that doesn't mean it cannot work politically.

In politics, being right doesn't always count. You have to show you can fight. McCain is ignoring reality to position himself as a populist reformer. Obama better burst that bubble.

In response to the news of the latest Wall Street meltdown, John McCain put out a statement that in part said:

Major reform must be made in Washington and on Wall Street. We cannot tolerate a system that handicaps our markets and our banks and places at risk the savings of hardworking Americans and investors. The McCain-Palin Administration will replace the outdated and ineffective patchwork quilt of regulatory oversight in Washington and bring transparency and accountability to Wall Street. We will rebuild confidence in our markets and restore our leadership in the financial world."

Perhaps he could start at McCain Campaign HQ. At least four of McCain's senior campaign aides--including Charlie Black, Rick Davis, and Wayne Berman have lobbied for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. And at least 20 of McCain's fundraisers have also lobbied for Freddie and Fannie. These folks were gaming the system for these now-discredited institutions. And now they are handing McCain his speech lines

McCain is surrounded by lobbyists. One hundred and seventy-seven, according to a report put out by the Democratic National Congress this past weekend. (Yeah, that's a biased source. But the paper trail is well documented.) Does McCain not understand that these lobbyists spend their days doing what they can to avoid making the legislative and regulatory processes in Washington more accountable and transparent. If McCain wants an open system, perhaps he would ask all those lobbyists helping his campaign to fill out reports explaining all their contacts with legislators, staff, and regulators--noting precisely what legislative changes, decisions and favors they are seeking.

In a new add, his campaign says, "Our economy in crisis Only proven reformers John McCain and Sarah Palin can fix it....No special interest giveaways." The guys and gals running McCain's campaign specialize in special interest giveaways. There is a whopping disconnect between what McCain says and what his top people do. If he doesn't see that, then he is, as the Obama crew says, out of touch.