The presidential election is in full swing and so, as happens like clockwork every four years, American politicians hates lobbyists and "special interest groups." John McCain recently referred to lobbyists as "birds of prey" and promised that anyone working for his administration would face a lifetime ban from the profession. Barack Obama won't take any money from lobbyists and promises to greatly diminish their role in Washington in his quest for good government.

It's hard to take any of this too seriously. The McCain camp, as has been widely noted, has rather obvious and embarrassing ties to lobbyists. Start here with campaign chairman Rick Davis, who a few years back was representing telecommunications firms before McCain's Senate Commerce Committee. Then there's Charlie Black, who has a long history of working for the most ethically challenged clients, ranging from Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines to Mobutu Sese Seko in what used to be called, as has been widely noted, Zaire.

Obama's ties to lobbyists are certainly not as deep as McCain's, but he's hardly immune to their influence, or to the general influence peddling that plagues Washington. Indeed, he has very publicly stated that he'll take no money from federal lobbyists, while quietly accepting money from state and local lobbyists. A recent New York Times reported that David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, has "provided his communications skills to a roster of corporations and nonprofit groups. Like his counterpart at the McCain campaign, he has often the goal of swaying government decision makers in favor of his clients." (Axelrod doesn't lobby directly, but his firm has run PR campaigns for corporate front groups such as Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity, which was created by a utility company looking for a rate increase.)

I took a look at the role and influence of lobbyists in my new book Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship. The heart of the book is an undercover investigation. In a nutshell, I posed as a business official with The Maldon Group, a bogus London-based firm that supposedly had a stake in the natural gas fields of Turkmenistan, which is led by one of the world's worst regimes.

The country was led until a few years ago by President-for-Life Saparmyrat Niyazov, who outlawed all political opposition, renamed the months of the year (April was renamed for his dear mom), and erected lots of giant golden statues all over Turkmenistan to honor his wisdom and benevolence. Niyazov died in late-2006 and was replaced by his personal dentist, in an election in which only members of the ruling party were allowed to compete and the victor won about 90 percent of the vote.

Not long afterwards, I approached a number of leading Washington lobbying firms to ask if they'd be interested in promoting and whitewashing the "newly elected" Turkmen regime. Several of the firms were keen to take on the job. Cassidy & Associates and APCO Worldwide were especially anxious to handle the account, asking the Maldon Group to pay fees of up to $1.5 million a year - and more if some annoying human rights group started issuing critical reports about Turkmenistan's Stalinist government.

The lobbyists laid out their game plans for me during face-to-face meetings I had at their downtown Washington offices. They promised they could set up meetings for visiting Turkmen officials on the Hill and with administration officials, arrange junkets to the country for congressional delegations, and influence the media (the plan here included writing in-house op-ed pieces, recruiting friendly academics or think tankers to sign them, and planting the finished products in American newspapers).

They also promised they could stage bogus events in Washington that would look independent but which would be largely controlled by the lobbyists, on behalf of the Turkmen regime. And of course they bragged about their access on Capitol Hill and the executive branch, where, the lobbyists said, they had countless contacts.

Last July, the Sunday Times of London pulled off a similar scam to my Turkmen sting. In their version, lobbyist and former Bush Administration official Stephen Payne thought he was meeting "Eric Dos," a man seeking to arrange meetings in Washington for Askar Akayev, the former president of Kyrgyzstan. Dos suggested Akayev would enjoy meeting senior administration officials, prominently mentioning in this regard vice president Dick Cheney. "I think that some things could be done," said Payne. "I think that the family, children, whatever [of Akayev], should probably look at making a contribution to the Bush library. It would be like, maybe a couple of hundred thousand dollars, or something like that, not a huge amount but enough to show that they're serious."

The Times piece caught Payne operating what looked to be an illegal pay-to-play scheme. None of the lobbyists I interviewed proposed breaking the law on behalf of Turkmenistan, though they certainly did propose stretching it. For example, APCO said that lobbyists weren't allowed to directly pay for congressional junkets now that Washington has transitioned into the glorious "post-Abramoff" period, but it could recruit a Turkmen University to sponsor the trip, and therefore make it (technically) legal. Turkmeniscam exposed the everyday corruption of Washington, which runs on campaign money, access, influence, connections, all which lobbyists have and dispense in abundance.

I'm not suggesting, obviously, that lobbying should be banned, or that all lobbyists are evil, or that lobbyists can win anything they want on behalf of their clients. But I do think - and both of the presidential candidates at least claim to agree with me on this point - that lobbyists have significant and inordinate ability to shape and influence public policies.

People ask me all the time, "What needs to be done to change the situation?" Unfortunately, I never have a good answer. So to get things started, I'll ask those participating in this weeks' Book Club a few questions:

First, How important are lobbyists in the overall power structure of Washington and how much should we, the public, be worried about their influence?

Second, how much good was done by congress's passage last year of The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007? It supposedly bans members of congress from taking gifts or junkets from lobbyists, forces greater disclosure of lobbyists' activities, slows down the revolving door and makes the earmarking process - better know as the pork factory - more transparent. Will this have a serious impact? Or, as one lobbyist I spoke with suggested, will it impose just a short period of reform before business returns no normal? ("I'm not sure what's going to happen in the long run," he said not long after the bill was passed. "When they lowered the speed limit to 55, everyone paid attention for six months. Then they started driving 70 again."

Third, is either Obama or McCain likely to press for serious lobbying reforms if he manages to win office?

Fourth, given the central role lobbyists play in raising money for political campaigns, is it even possible to imagine (as long as campaigns are privately financed) a scenario in which their influence is seriously reduced?