Jerry Crawford, an Iowa lawyer and lobbyist with deep ties to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, recently registered as the Washington representative for Monsanto, a biotechnology and agrichemical giant that embodies the “special interests” President Obama planned to drive from the temple of federal government.

The Des Moines Register calls Crawford a “well-connected, high-profile Des Moines lawyer” and “Democratic power broker.”

Examine his record, and you see what the paper means. Crawford was once chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party. He was the Iowa chairman for the presidential campaigns of Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry. In 2008, he was Hillary Clinton’s Midwest campaign chairman.

Of greater significance today, he is also a “longtime Vilsack friend and adviser,” a “Vilsack ally,” a “top Vilsack insider,” and “a guru for and a big friend of Gov. Tom Vilsack,” according to the Register.

In 1998, Crawford got in near the ground floor of Vilsack’s rise in politics, putting his reputation and wealth behind the long shot gubernatorial candidate. Crawford hosted at least one fundraiser for Vilsack that year, which netted $23,000.

Questions arose early in Vilsack’s tenure about conflicts regarding Crawford’s work as a lobbyist and his closeness to Vilsack. A 1999 Register article reported that Vilsack, before firing members of the gambling commission disliked by the casinos, had raised $17,000 from gambling interests. “Most of the $17,000 Vilsack received came from Jerry Crawford, a lawyer for the Iowa Greyhound Association,” the article reported.