The controversial YouTube ad calling for Charlie Black's head.

Before we get to my NEWSWEEK colleague Holly Bailey's latest dispatch from Straight Talk Air, a little background: over the past few days, the McCain campaign has instituted a new conflicts policy designed to flush registered lobbyists from its staff, reportedly at the senator's behest. Our mag's investigative ace Michael Isikoff has now targeted two staffers--convention chief/Burma lobbyist Doug Goodyear and national finance chairman Tom Loeffler--who've ended up getting the boot. Meanwhile, a handful of others have fallen; a few more are set to go within the week. According to spokesman Brian Rogers, this lobbyist debacle is a "perception problem"--and despite Team Obama's mockery, there's something to that. As top McCain strategist Charlie Black suggests below, Obama's "no contributions from federal lobbyists" pledge hasn't exactly kept the lobbyists away from his campaign--it's merely masked the scent. Read on for Black's take, via Holly; check out the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder for a detailed analysis of Obama's own lobbyist links.

John McCain’s campaign is beginning to push back against charges that his campaign is too closely aligned to lobbyists.

On the heels of this weekend’s resignation of Tom Loeffler, a lobbyist who had been serving as the campaign’s national finance chairman, McCain strategist Charlie Black came back to talk to reporters on the plane traveling with McCain to Chicago this morning. Black, who recently left his position with one of Washington’s most influential lobbying firms to volunteer full time for McCain, has come under fire for his ties to the industry. He’s currently the star of a MoveOn.org ad that calls for his ouster amid claims that he and his firm had lobbied for “some of the world’s worst tyrants.” On the plane, Black denied any wrongdoing and reiterated that he has no plans of resigning. Asked if he thought the lobbyist issue could hurt McCain with voters, Black bristled. “Hell no,” he said. “This is complete inside-the-Beltway nonsense… I do not believe average voters out there care.” Black, who left his firm BSKH in March to serve as McCain’s top strategist, told reporters that he considers himself “retired” from the industry and said that he turned down a large severance package to avoid a conflict of interest. “I was in compliance before there was a rule,” he said, referring to the campaign’s new policy instituted late last week that prohibits any staffer on the campaign from being a registered lobbyist or foreign agent.

Under the policy, volunteers have to disclose whether they are registered agents and are not allowed to lobby McCain or his legislative staffs while they are working for the campaign. Black insisted that he and manager Rick Davis, who is on leave from his lobbying firm, have done nothing wrong."Your past profession should not be injected into a candidate's campaign," Black said. He grew visibly irritated when a reporter questioned if it was a conflict of interest that his wife, Judy Black, is a registered lobbyist, calling the line of questioning “unfair” and “sexist.” “My wife has never gotten clients from her relationship with me,” he said, clearly upset. “Read the fine print… (The policy says you) commit not to lobby him or his staff or committee staff so what incentive would somebody have to hire her or any firm to lobby McCain.” He challenged reporters to give equal scrutiny to Obama’s campaign and its relationship to lobbyists. “The only legitimate lobbyist-spouse connection I know of is that Obama’s lobbyist bundlers cannot write checks but their spouses can,” he said. “That's more interesting than whether some mythological company is going to hire my wife."

P.S. From Ambinder, four items on Obama and lobbyists:

"Item: Many lobbyists advise the Obama campaign presumably on matters that they will continue to lobby about it Obama is president. Item: Former lobbyists can contribute to Obama; they can bundle; can host fundraisers; plenty of state government lobbyists have contributed. Item: Senior Obama campaign officials, like Steve Hilderband, worked as lobbyists before joining the Obama campaign. Hildebrand, ironically, lobbyied on behalf of the McCain-Lieberman cap-and-trade bill. Many other officials lobbied on behalf of labor unions (field director Buffy Wicks) and corporations (Delegate counter extraordinaire Jeff Berman.) Item: the McCain campaign's new conflicts policy is as strict as -- or more strict than -- the Obama campaign's."

The moral of the story: no one is clean here. That said, politically speaking it's pretty tough for a crusader against special interests, like McCain, to justify having former pro-Saudi and pro-Burma lobbyists as top staffers--even if they don't influence his thinking on foreign policy.

UPDATE, 2:39 p.m.: From Montana, Obama on McCain's lobbyist ties--a.k.a., the political imperative behind the purge:

"Democrat Barack Obama on Monday seized upon John McCain's efforts to shed his campaign of lobbyist ties, saying the Republican’s campaign "is being run by Washington lobbyists and paid for with their money." "We need a president who sees government not as a tool to enrich friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as the defender of fairness and opportunity for every American," Obama said at a town hall meeting here. Obama said McCain has been a candidate for more than a year, but it was only when stories surfaced about his aides' work for various interests that he "took any action to curb their roles.”