The post below about Tommy the Cork is too good to pass up and I recommend that you read it. Here it is again. It calls Corcoran the first modern lobbyist and explains why: The breadth of agencies created in the New Deal provided expanded opportunities for deal making. Those who knew the ins and outs of the agencies could sell their services at a premium.
"The trail that Corcoran traveled seems well-beaten now: find a government job, develop expertise, then leave government to sell that expertise for a handsome profit. But it was Tommy Corcoran and a handful of other FDR aides who first applied that career strategy to the executive branch. They recognized that the mix of New Deal regulations and World War II foreign policy commitments had created an opening for savvy, well-connected lobbyists who focused not just on Congress, as they had in the past, but on federal agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Export-Import Bank."
And that's the world we live in now.
