Corporate lobbyists say the presidential candidates most favorable to them are Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Mitt Romney. Not surprisingly, the one they fear the most is John Edwards. Barak Obama is an unkown quantity to them, and Mike Huckabee is on a wait and see list. Of course, Huckabee, as this season's King of the Flip Flops, is more apt to swing the way of the corporatist. For a preacher man, he's such a whore.

Asked which candidate their clients most support, corporate lobbyists were unsure. Clinton has cautious backing within the corporate jet set, as do Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and former Republican Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, they said.

These candidates represent stability to executives who have much to lose if November's election brings about the sweeping change some candidates are promising.

Obama and Huckabee register largely as unknown quantities among business owners, both large and small, say lobbyists.

"My sense is that Obama would govern as a reasonably pragmatic Democrat ... I think Hillary is approachable. She knows where a lot of her funding has come from, to be blunt," said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Stanford Group Co., a market and policy analysis group.

But Edwards, Valliere said, is seen as "an anti-business populist" and "a trade protectionist who is quite unabashed about raising taxes."

"I think his regulatory policies, as well as his tax policies, would be viewed as a threat to business," he said.

"The next scariest for business would be Huckabee because of his rhetoric and because he's an unknown."