We’ve explained on numerous occasions why lobbyists love it when liberals are in power. To put it succinctly: the more economic planning that goes through Washington, the more smart corporations must pay lobbyists to make sure Washington does not plan them out of existence. Today Jeffrey Birnbaum reports in his ‘On K Street‘ column, that K Street is in the midst of a spending spree in anticipation of liberal control of Washington next year:

Attacks from the presidential wannabes and the likelihood that Congress will become even more Democratic — read: more activist — means that many corporate interests will face increased danger next year and will have to employ more of the people whose job is to protect them — lobbyists.

“Next year will seem like 10 years,” predicted Richard H. Baker, president of the Managed Funds Association and a former Republican congressman from Louisiana. In anticipation, his group, which lobbies for hedge funds, has more than doubled the number of lobbying firms it normally hires.

Lobbying’s guns-for-hire also foresee a gold rush in their billings. One reason, they say, is that Congress has been stalemated for so long on topics including taxation, energy prices and climate change that a flood of legislation probably will come tumbling out under a new president.

“There’s going to be a whole lot more activity for people who do what we do,” said Jack Quinn of the lobbying firm Quinn Gillespie & Associates. That’s “a perverse irony,” added Nicholas W. Allard of Patton Boggs, given the candidates’ anti-lobbyist views.