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The Office of Public Liaison has been a specialized unit of the White House staff since the Gerald Ford administration, though the basic features of the staff assignment can be traced to Franklin D. Roosevelt. The OPL has helped presidents achieve their goals in multiple ways: to mobilize public support for presidential initiatives in order to sell programs to Congress; to factor groups' views into White House policy making; and to serve as an adjunct to the reelection campaign. The unit also has provided symbolic representation for groups in the White House, helping them with "casework'' and interpreting their policy positions and internal group politics to administration decision makers. Within the White House, the OPL staff has operated within different systems of reporting and coordination, but the generic roles played by the staff members tend to be similar across administrations, as are the strategic design choices that administrations must make.
To an unusual degree, the contest for the 2008 presidential nominations high- lighted the relationships among candidates, lobbyists, and political action committees. Barack Obama resolutely refused to accept contributions from lobbyists and political action committees, a policy that was adopted by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) after Obama became the party's presumptive nominee. The media closely scru- tinized John McCain's past and present relationships with lobbyists, and several promi- nent aides were forced to sever ties with the campaign, while others continued on amid controversy. Hillary Clinton dismissed a leading campaign strategist over a policy conflict between her official campaign positions and one of his lobbying clients. Major candidates also deemed it important to assert their ability to rise above narrow group interests. In the post- World War II era, most presidential candidates and all eventual winners have portrayed themselves as representatives of the American people, as the tribune of the public's collective interests, not as the representative of any segment's interests or even those of the victorious coalition (Hinckley 1990). Such a claim was critical for both Obama and Clinton to assert in order to overcome the possible perception that their historic candidacies would lead them to represent the interests of a single segment of the American public, blacks or women. In addition, Obama, John Edwards, and McCain consistently presented themselves as champions...