GovernmentExecutive.com

President-elect Obama on Tuesday signaled that lobbyists could serve in his transition so long as their activities do not involve areas of policy they have tried to influence in the past year, according to the Associated Press.

John Podesta, a top transition aide to Obama, said federal lobbyists will be prohibited from any lobbying while they are at work on the transition, according to the AP. The transition office said in a statement, "if someone has lobbied in the last 12 months, they are prohibited from working in the fields of policy on which they lobbied."

Podesta said federal lobbyists may not contribute financially to the transition. He called the guidelines the toughest ever imposed by a presidential transition, the AP said.

But they seem to give lobbyists somewhat more leeway than Obama suggested they would have when he campaigned for the presidency. Obama had pledged in speeches that lobbyists would not "run" his White House. His campaign Web site also vowed that no "political appointees in an Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years." And it also said that no political appointees will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration.