It is an open secret in Washington that many big-name, partisan political strategy firms have affiliates that handle non-partisan, revenue-producing corporate accounts. But the work gets a little tricky for Democratic consultants, especially if they're affiliated with a party that favors populist crusades against big business.

The New York Observer's Smith reported this week that Mark Penn, pollster for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, was named CEO of a public relations firm that works with Altria, formerly Phillip Morris. And Al Gore took heat for keeping Carter Eskew in his inner circle; Gore regularly lambasted the tobacco industry and Eskew consulted on its behalf.

Today, Wal-Mart figures in many intertwining Democratic relationships. Several coalitions of liberals are arrayed against the company, including two major unions: the Service Employees International Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).

But Leslie Dach, a Clinton administration communications official who served as senior adviser to the DNC during last year's presidential election, now helps Wal-Mart communicate with the public and press. Many centrist Dems believe that Wal-Mart exerts a net positive force on the economy. And Sen. Clinton herself sat for years on Wal-Mart's board when her husband was Governor of Arkansas. (She left the company in 1992, before Wal-Mart's critics say the company began to engage in exploitative practices.)

Wal-Mart sympathizers are trying to discredit Wake Up Wal-Mart, a UFCW-affiliated group, by noting that Joe Trippi, a Wake-Up Wal-Mart consultant, once did work for the same ex-tobacco exec, Robert McAdam, that Wake Up Wal-Mart slammed the retail giant for hiring.

In 1992, Trippi and then-partner Steve McMahon worked with the Tobacco Institute to help the lobby oppose efforts to raise excise taxes on cigarettes. The Tobacco Institute argued that the taxes would disproportionately fall on minorities.

Trippi and McMahon provided political advice and media strategy to the institute, according to a contract drawn up by both parties. McAdam was their point of contact; McMahon was the lead on the account, according to two people familiar with the arrangements.

Associates of both Trippi and McMahon say that McMahon handled more of the corporate work than Trippi, who spent most of his time working for liberal candidates.

In an interview, Trippi said he's working for Wake Up Wal-Mart "on a near volunteer basis. "And Bob McAdam is working full-time for Wal-Mart. Bob McAdam knows full well that that was Steve McMahon's account and not mine. I would be lying if I said I didn't do some of the work. I did. It's also true that it's one of the major factors in my deciding to leave the firm."

Trippi now works as a boutique consultant for a variety of progressive Dems. Wake-Up Wal-Mart's executive director, Paul Blank, declined to comment.

McMahon remains a close adviser to DNC Chairman Howard Dean and has developed a reputation as a Democratic media strategist who handles his corporate clients with skill and discretion.

He is CEO of Issue and Image, and along with partner John Donovan, engineers issue advoacy campaigns for trade associations, non-profits and businesses. Among them: PhRMA, the lobby of the pharmaceutical industry.

Dean has called "big pharaceutical companies" a "special interest," endorsed allowing Americans to import prescription drugs from Canada, and has been criticial of drug companies' marketing practices.

PhRMA contracted with McMahon's Issue and Image to help the lobby defeat California's Proposition 79, which would have forced drug companies to offer steep discounts on drugs to low-income residents. PhRMA used Issue and Image to help promote a competing proposition on the ballot that would have brought the industry's voluntary drug discount program to CA.

McMahon declined to comment on specific clients. But in an interview, he said he stands by his work on behalf of the drug industry.

"My father died of a heart attack when he was 44. I just turned 45 because I take a cholesterol-lowering drug every day," he said. "So I have a different view of the pharmaceutical industry than some of my Democratic friends."

A further twist: Trippi worked to pass the proposition PhRMA opposed.

McMahon maintains a stake in the original political consultant firm, renamed McMahon, Squier and Associates. Candidate clients have included Dean, and ME Gov. John Baldacci and ex-OR Gov. John Kitzhaber.

It was McMahon who introduced Trippi to Dean. McMahon is an unpaid adviser to the Democratic National Committee. And it was Blank who Trippi hired as political director on Dean's presidential campaign.[MARC AMBINDER]