Axelrod said that such efforts were intended to encourage public participation and were not lobbying. "I don't do lobbying," he said. "I have never approached any public official -- nor has any member of my staff -- on behalf of a corporation.
"There is nothing I do that violates the spirit or the letter of what Obama is trying to do with his guidelines," he said.
(Obama's standards now are stricter than those he followed as an Illinois state senator. His former legislative aide, Dan Shomon, left the state payroll and eventually became a part-time consultant for corporations with interests before the state government. But Obama retained Shomon as a part-time political consultant through 2005.)
Several volunteer advisors to Obama's presidential campaign were registered as federal lobbyists in recent years. For example, former South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges, a national co-chairman, was lobbying at the federal level for a Chicago-based mortgage investment company until March. Obama acknowledges that his restrictions are imperfect, "but he views them as an important first step," spokesman Hari Sevugan says.
McCain, first elected to Congress in 1982, still has lobbyists and former lobbyists on his campaign team.
Carlos Bonilla, a volunteer economic advisor to McCain, has received lobbying fees from Panama and Bangladesh -- as well as from telecommunications firms with business before the Senate Commerce Committee, which McCain chairs. Bonilla did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Last week, media reports revealed that McCain's chief foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, had represented Taiwan, Macedonia and the Republic of Georgia and had called McCain's Senate office directly on behalf of some clients. On Friday, the campaign said that Scheunemann was now in full compliance with the new rules: He no longer represented those clients and had taken an unpaid leave from his lobbying firm.
Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, is a former lobbyist whose firm, Davis Manafort, represented a range of corporations and foreign clients, including the government of Nigeria and an influential elected official in Argentina.
McCain's campaign said senior strategist Charles Black had retired from his lobbying firm, where he represented corporate and foreign clients that included Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi. Campaign spokesman Brian Rogers declined to comment on other McCain staffers or volunteers and their lobbying work, saying campaign officials still were reviewing disclosure reports -- which he said set a higher standard than the Obama campaign's.
