How to get a job in the Obama administration in a tough economy

First, get a lot of money.

Second, get a lot of friends with a lot of money.

Third, all of you give a lot of that money to Barack Obama's Democratic presidential campaign.

A new research study by the Center for Responsive Politics confirms what a lot of Washington watchers expected all along: All that Obama talk about changing the way Washington works is also a whole lot of hooey, at least insofar as it relates to United States ambassadors to other countries.

The capitol's decidedly bipartisan tradition for generations has been: Want to live in a foreign place for a couple of years, probably not all that important a place but still foreign, get a nice title for life, luxurious government housing, staff, car and driver and more use for your tuxedo than back home?

Then help the winning White House entrant finance his/her campaign.

And no one throughout American political history ever had a better-financed campaign than Obama with his $750 million.

The CRP has found 19 of Obama's new ambassadors and their families bundled at least $3.4 million for Obama's campaign and an additional $1.4 million just for his inauguration festivities. And you thought the campaigns don't keep track of such generosity? Even some of now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's donors are getting rewarded.

Yes, true, Obama did name Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as ambassador to China. And Huntsman bundled $500,000 for Obama's defeated Republican opponent, old what's-his-name from Arizona who keeps popping up on the Sunday shows anyway.

But it's apparently worth at least a half-mil to Obama to get Huntsman tied to his Democratic administration, out of the country and far from Iowa in the run-up to 2012.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Hat Tip to Jake Tapper's must-read Political Punch blog.

Recognize the balding fellow on the $10,000 bill? We didn't either. Scroll down for his identity.

Kenneth Starr endorses Sotomayor. What will Rush Limbaugh say?

It happened just over 10 years ago.

Monica Lewinsky, a young White House intern, had an affair with President Bill Clinton.

And special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, the former solicitor general and judge charged with investigating whether Clinton lied to a grand jury about it, issued a report that sparked a personal and political crisis. First Lady Hillary Clinton wasn't speaking to her husband. Official Washington was paralyzed. Clinton's presidency effectively ended early.

Now dean of Pepperdine University Law School, Starr -- whose own hopes for the high court were dashed by his partisan and, some felt, needlessly salacious report on Clinton's meanderings -- is now endorsing Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court.

In a keynote address at Loyola Law School on Thursday, the man whose report was the basis for the Clinton impeachment trial said he "thinks very well" of Sotomayor.

The first Latina nominated to the court, Sotomayor has twice visited Pepperdine to participate in a program for judicial clerks, according to Mother Jones. "She was a huge hit with the students," Starr said.

As Sotomayor developments go, this one is kind of delicious. Will an endorsement by Starr, a member of the conservative Federalist Society, make it more difficult for Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh or any Republican in the U.S. Senate to oppose Sotomayor?

Watch this space. The Ticket will be chronicling the Sotomayor experience, from nomination to confirmation.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: Dan Loh/Associated Press of Monica Lewinsky and her attorney, William Ginsburg.

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As California votes, Obama loves Gov. Schwarzenegger and says so

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave up on his California ballot proposals today and flew off to Washington to talk about ground-based auto emissions.

The Ticket had an earlier item today here about his trip and the governor's political problems back home.

But now we know the Republican governor and California's congressional delegation and Californians in general were rewarded with some very kind and generous words from the Democratic president, whom the governor has often praised back.

Here's the video:

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Peter Grigsby / Office of the Governor

Polls open in a New York state of mind

They're calling it a referendum on President Obama's economic policies  and on the strength of his coattails. It's also a crucial marker for embattled Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who has called the race a priority and who needs a victory to steady his rocky start.

By whatever name, today's special election to replace Kirsten Gillibrand -- elevated to the U.S. Senate by Gov. David Paterson when Hillary Rodham Clinton left to become Obama's secretary of State -- in NY20 is shaping up as a hell of a contest.

This is a conservative, upstate, gun-loving district, where Republicans have a 70,000-voter registration advantage but where Obama won in November.

Democrat Scott Murphy  has embraced all things Obama, including the president's $787-billion stimulus plan. Republican James Tedisco has lashed out against deficit spending and welcomed helped from Steele, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and even robocall help from longtime crooner Pat Boone.

The latest Siena Research Institute poll shows Murphy ahead by four points (47% to 43%), a come-from-behind position after trailing Tedisco by 12 points in February (46% to 34%).

If Republicans win, look for them to champion the end of the Obama honeymoon and use the victory to energize their voters in upcoming gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia. If they lose, look for Democrats to crow about the president's continuing popularity and chances for Democrats to hold or boost their margins in the nation's gubernatorial races as well as the House and the Senate.

But Charlie Cook, whose Cook Political Report is a must-read for Washington's politicos, is dubious about how much the race means for the national landscape. In his CongressDaily column today, he writes:

Assuming that the margin in this upstate contest to fill the seat of newly-appointed Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is three or four points or less, my advice is to respond "that's nice," then yawn, and walk away. What is more important is if there is a uniform direction to several odd-year elections. If, for example, Republicans were to win tonight and knock off Gov. Jon Corzine in New Jersey in November, and pick up the open governor seat in Virginia, then it is fair to say that they will have exorcised the demons of 2006 and 2008.

And, he added, "if Democrats hold NY20 as well as New Jersey and Virginia, they can enter 2010 knowing that even if the wind isn't at their backs, there also isn't a headwind."

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photo (above left): James Tedisco. Credit: Reuters

Photo (above right): Scott Murphy. Credit: Reuters

Here comes card-check/EFCA: Another bipartisan bridge to nowhere

Big day today for heated controversy in D.C. Maybe you felt the heat on the side of your face facing East. And it's not going away for many months. Count on it.

Democrats, now obviously controlling Capitol Hill and the White House, introduced a long-promised, eagerly anticipated, much-dreaded, surely divisive, middle-class-encouraging, job-threatening piece of legislation in both houses to change the way American workers can opt for or against union representation at the plant.

Democrats call it the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA; store that one in your cranial RAM as you'll hear it often). Republicans and employers call it "card check." (Ditto.) Right now, in a vote to decide whether a plant will have a union, workers have the right to a secret ballot. (See amazing Teamsters news release below.) The unions and their supporters want a simple nonsecret card where workers could check "yes" or "no," likely in the presence of a persuasive union official.

Unions claim elections are costly and time-consuming, allowing employers to make a case against voting yes. Employers say two union officials showing up at a worker's door, asking him to....

Groundhog bites N.Y. Mayor Bloomberg, signals early arrival of pain

So everyone was gathered there on Staten Island for the annual Feb. 2 photo stupidity of whether the captive groundhog sees his shadow or not.

Good thing there's no economic or budgetary crisis in New York City or the nation to distract from such guff.

So Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the one-time-Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent, was presiding along with Charles G. Hogg, the zoo's live groundhog prop, party affiliation unknown.

Bloomberg picked up the groundhog and enthusiastically waved it on high for the crowd to see, which may not have been what the awakening creature had in mind.

Then, according to a report by Bloomberg's own Bloomberg news, Bloomberg teased the animal with a cob of corn, giving the groundhog a nibble and jerking it away, then offering it again and yanking it away. Lotsa fun.

That's when Charles G. Hogg bit the billionaire. On the left index finger. Right through the official mayoral glove. Drew blood.

Sporting a bandage later, the mayor described his furry attacker as "a terrorist rodent that might very well have been trained by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan." An embarrassed joke that may not seem as funny within New York City as without.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Spencer T. Tucker / Mayor's Office via Associated Press

Yes, we can rip off President Obama's slogan and face

White House lawyers, apparently with few other pressing issues to press, are reportedly investigating ways of protecting use of President Obama's image all over the globe.

A whole lotta luck with that, guys.

Bloomberg News' Julianna Goldman quotes a White House spokeswoman: "Our lawyers are working on developing a policy that will protect the presidential image while being careful not to squelch the overwhelming enthusiasm that the public has for the president.”

As The Ticket documented here with copious photos around Inauguration Day, millions of articles bearing his image are already sold and worn virtually everywhere on the planet.

(See some sample photos by scrolling down or clicking on the "Read more" line below.)

Southwest Airlines had a "Yes You Can" ticket sale. Ben & Jerry's has a "Yes, Pecan" ice cream. And Ikea is pushing unassembled furniture out the door with its "Embrace Change" campaign.

Pepsi-Cola has the same old drink but a new symbol that looks remarkably similar to Obama's wiggly planet. Mark Silva reports over on the Swamp that some clean coal coalition is using the Great Change Agent's smiley face in one of its ads without White House complaint.

We haven't seen any ads yet showing the green Obama endorsing his favorite Honeywell thermostat that enables him to keep the Oval Office at Hawaiian beach temperatures. But J. Crew Group is advertising its clothes as worn by First Lady Michelle Obama, who's more concerned about some dollmaker naming a new line after daughters Malia and Sasha. Which the dollmaker said was just an amazing coincidence.

Here's another coincidence the new White House lawyers might not want to pursue. The widely used Spanish slogan -- "Si Se Puede" ("Yes We Can") -- was actually previously used by the recently reviled last president, George W. Bush, when he captured much of the Hispanic vote in his Texas gubernatorial campaigns.

So, who'll sue who?

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Brazen Obama sells White House Super Bowl cheers for political support

Where's Dennis "I Want to Impeach Somebody" Kucinich when you need him?

President Obama, who ran as the Great Change Agent so very free of lobbyist and special interest influences, has just blatantly admitted to the world that he has sold the White House Super Bowl allegiance as a quid pro quo for the political support of an NFL team owner, some old white guy from a dying city who's up for an ambassadorship somewhere.

In a brief Oval Office exchange today as the president was trying to talk about all this boring Wall Street economic stuff, a pool reporter plunged to the real story of the week and asked him, "The Steelers or Cardinals, sir?"

Here is what the 44th president said. He can't run from it and say his words were taken out of context a la Blagojevich. It's right there in the transcript:

"I have to say, you know, I wish the Cardinals the best. Kurt Warner is a great story and he's closer to my age than anybody else on the field, but I am a long-time Steelers fan. Mr. Rooney, the owner, was just an extraordinary supporter during the course of the campaign. Franco Harris was campaigning for me in Pittsburgh. So --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Coach signed up with you, too.

THE PRESIDENT: Right, Coach Tomlin was a supporter. So I -- you know, I wish the best to the Cardinals. They've been long-suffering; it's a great Cinderella story. But other than the Bears, the Steelers are probably the team that's closest to my heart."

OK, Obama already won Pennsylvania on Nov. 4. By endorsing the Steelers today, he'll lose Ohio next time for certain. Now, by dissing the Phoenix Cardinals, there goes the Sunbelt. And the vote of anyone who visits there. Middle-agers for Warner are gone to Obama now too.

But what about Chicago, Obama's latest hometown? The Cardinals originally played there. (Also, Racine and St. Louis, but that's not the point.) In fact, the Cardinals were THE team of Chicago's South Side, where Obama still lives and says he cheers for the White Sox. And the Cards often played the dread and detested Bears at Wrigley Field on the North Side.

That's how the Cards won their last NFL Championship -- in 1947, which is before Obama was even born and uttered his first words: "moving forward."

Yet, gee, whose hat does Obama wear? No wonder not one Republican House member trusted him with their bipartisan economic stimulus vote.

Obama was once described as the longshot candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Let's see, pittsberg steelers, who won the Super Bowl just the other day as a farewell gift for Jerome Bettis, or the Phoenix Cardinals, who haven't even been to the playoffs since the 1980s.

Big political gaffe today.

Speaking of gaffes, Vice President Biden of nearby Delaware is cheering for the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl.*

--Andrew Malcolm

* Not really. We made that up out of bitterness for the Ravens abandoning Cleveland, which won the NFL Championship in 1964 by upsetting -- oh, look! -- Baltimore.

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Late word: Burris is in, Reid's gone quiet and Blago's still there

Catching up: Seeking to end an embarrassing episode, Democratic leaders of the U.S. Senate sent word to the world today that Roland Burris, a 71-year-old African American, would be sworn in later this week to replace the 47-year-old president-elect, Barack Obama. (See video below.)

The move, done with no cameras present to provide lasting video evidence of the political debacle for Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Illinois' other senator, Dick Durbin, should get the political mess out of the way in time for Obama's inauguration next Tuesday, as his aides had suggested.

Even in another time zone, the cloistered cackling of Illinois Gov. Rod "Bleeping" Blagojevich could be heard. It was his arrest on corruption charges and release on bail in early December that prompted Reid to get 49 other Senate Democrats to sign a letter and announce how that body would never accept any appointee of a tainted governor like fellow Democrat Blagojevich. And a vacationing Obama agreed with Reid.

Blago, who played hardball in pre-school, bided his time and then presented Reid with a holiday present, the nomination of an African American Democratic loyalist, no shining star but someone who's paid his party dues as state attorney general and comptroller.

And someone it would be virtually impossible to prevent from becoming the Senate's only black member, especially once Blago allies leaked word that Reid had opposed naming three other African American candidates as too weak in a wiretapped phone call with the governor just before his arrest.

And especially since Democrats so desperately wanted to avoid a special statewide election that they initially called for before realizing, oops, in this corruption climate, even a Republican might win an Illinois election.

Then Blago got the black caucus to endorse Burris, who was barred from taking his seat last week and led TV cameras on a minutely-documented sad Capitol Hill trek just trying to get in. How disappointing coming just before the Martin Luther King Jr holiday. Reid and Durbin created a face-saving canard over the missing signature of Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White. But even without the signature, the handwriting was on the wall.

As you'll see in the video here, the soft-spoken Burris, who knows better than to spout public words he might have to take back, was calm and gracious and humble and talking about learning from Senate veterans like Reid. Though the obvious lesson this time was the other way around.

Burris -- or more likely someone else -- will have to run in an election next year. By then, the embarrassing tumult will have died down and, golly gee, some clean replacement Democrat like Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan or Obama White House aide Valerie Jarrett could challenge Burris, if he was unwise enough to resist being pushed out.

Burris has never lost to a Republican, but he's lost often in Democratic primaries. Burris today said he hadn't decided about a 2010 run. Yeh, right. Of course, it would be absolutely ridiculous to suggest that Burris has already agreed to step aside next year in return for his long-coveted two years in the big-time. That would be a kind of political quid pro quo that's out of the question, especially in Illinois Democratic politics.

Oh, and Democrat Blagojevich is still sitting at the governor's desk. With his guy in Obama's seat. And his close friend, Rahm Emanuel, as White House chief of staff starting next week. Other than that, Blago lost everything in this struggle.

-- Andrew  Malcolm

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Photo credit: Tannen Maury / EPA (Gov. Blagojevich names Burris to the Senate).

Ticket Replay: A double O moment -- Oprah and Obama at the same inaugural

The Ticket is republishing this weekend some of our favorite items from recent campaign months. This one looking toward the Obama inauguration on Jan. 20 originally appeared in this space on Dec. 5, 2008:

Shortly before the Nov. 4 presidential voting closed, noted Obama-backer Oprah Winfrey announced that she'd already picked out her inaugural ball gown, a sign of overconfidence that she did not have to pay for in the end.

Now that Barack Obama's inauguration is virtually certain (unless the Supreme Court's ponderings lead it to get involved), Oprah has announced she's taking her Chicago talk show to Washington, which is also famous for lotsa talk. (And that'll allow her to write off the gown cost as a business expense.)

She's rented the 2,300-seat Kennedy Center to do two shows there right around Jan. 20.

You may remember Oprah came out early for her fellow Chicagoan. She held a huge celebrity fundraiser for him at her Montecito house.

And she emceed giant primary rallies for him in Iowa and North Carolina, which he won, and New Hampshire, which he lost to Hillary Clinton, the first serious female presidential candidate who many former Oprah fans thought she should support. Winfrey's ratings took a hit.

We don't want to let anything out of the bag and spoil the screaming.

But wouldn't it just be a perfect television moment if, while Oprah is talking to the excited Kennedy Center audience in January at inauguration time, a certain someone who's about to become president and maybe his wife too walked out on the stage behind the show host?

Everyone would cry, except those execs watching the ratings.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Oprah.com