The Bush administration "hasn't been particularly positive on a tobacco-control agenda," says Paul Billings of the American Lung Association, but their track records indicate that better can be expected regardless of whether Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or John McCain is elected to succeed George Bush as president.

The Media General News Service reported May 21 that Billings noted that Bush often sided with the tobacco industry over public-health advocates, including vetoing a children's health insurance bill funded with tobacco taxes and opposing FDA regulation of tobacco products.

"It's hard to point to a lot of positive tobacco-control actions on the (current) administration's part," Billings said.

All three current presidential candidates support FDA regulation, however, a fact that "distinguishes them from the current administration," said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. In fact, McCain went against his own party leadership in pushing for such regulation in the late 1990s, paying a price when tobacco companies funded a series of negative campaign ads that helped cost McCain the GOP primary in South Carolina during the 2000 campaign against Bush.

McCain opposed the children's health bill this year, however, siding with Bush. Clinton and Obama supported the measure.

A top McCain adviser, Charlie Black, is a former lobbyist for Philip Morris, and Black's wife is a former executive with the Tobacco Institute. Mark Penn, a top adviser to Hillary Clinton, also worked for Philip Morris.

Obama has smoked cigarettes up until very recently. Clinton is a lifelong nonsmoker, while McCain quit decades ago.

As of April, tobacco-company employees had donated $46,000 to Clinton's campaign, $25,000 to McCain, and $20,000 to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.