‘How to Be a Lobbyist Without Trying’

March 25, 2006

We’ve all heard about the high-priced, lobbyist-only meetings at which senators like Conrad Burns (R-Montana) spends so much of their time, but have you ever wondered what it was really like inside? Not just for the average schmoe, but for the lobbyists themselves?

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi snagged an invitation to a Burns birthday party in DC recently, while in town to investigate some Abramoff-related activities. On a lark, he printed some business cards, threw together some official-looking fact sheets, and made up a client. The result was … well …. disturbing.

My fact sheet was headlined crude oil in grand canyon national park. It had a nice picture of the Grand Canyon on it. I was going to be Matthew Taibbi, Government Relations adviser for Dosko, a fictional Russian firm representing various energy interests, including a fictional oil company called PerDuNefteGaz that wanted to drill for oil in the Grand Canyon. My friend ratified the plan as the perfect lobbyist’s pitch: shady foreign company seeking to violate, with a long metal phallus, America’s most sacred natural landmark. I’d be welcomed with open arms, he said.

As it turns out, “PerDuNefteGaz” translates roughly as “FartOilGas.” Regardless, one might think, given Taibbi’s preposterous (and fictional) idea, even at a Conrad Burns party, he’d be laughed out of the room. One would be wrong.

Taibbi talked to one Burns staffer about his “project,” who then introduced him to the senator’s aide who handles issues involving energy and the “environment.”

“We’re pursuing a number of projects,” I said. “Including one that would involve some exploratory drilling in Grand Canyon National Park. Now, obviously this is complicated but . . . at some point in time I was hoping we could sit down and I could tell you a little more about our company and our energy-independent project.”

“OK,” she said. She gave me her information and told me to call her anytime.

Another lobbyist in attendance told him his plan to drill for oil in the Grand Canyon would be considered reasonable. As he put it, “[A]s long as you’ve got the environmental-impact research, that won’t be too bad.”

Tell me, how is parody even possible when events like this are commonplace in DC?

Beyond belief, isn’t it? It reminds me of the old cartoon about what a dog really hears:

Master says: “Now be a good dog, Fluffy, because I have to go change the oil in the car so we can go walkies and it will cost a lot of money especially if I spill the oil in the driveway and we don’t want to spend a lot of money on oil, now do we?”

Dog hears: “….oil…..money….oil…..money….oil…..”

  • it’s amazing what you can get away with.

    I used to take a room in a pretty nice San Francisco hotel which we would then use for parties. Singles or couples from USF paid a couple bucks, brought their own booze; we provided mixers, a bartender. After the party we got the room for the night, sauna next morning, etc. The name we registered under was “A. Porcello”, sales rep for the Hollywood Paper Company. “Porcello” is Italian for “little pig”.

    We also used to go on board the Matson Lines’ “Lurline” before it sailed for Hawaii. We dressed up, of course (everyone did those days in San Francisco). There were “bon voyage” parties all over the ship with plenty of food to stuff in your mouth (and pockets) and plenty of free booze, too.

    I’m glad it never occurred to us to pose as potential oil drillers in the Grand Canyon.

  • May I highly recommend that you all go see “Thank You For Smoking”, which really does portray this stuff and very accurately, despite its being billed as a satire. It’s kind of like how I used to tell people that “The Player,” a stoyr about a studio executive who kills a screenwriter and gets away with it, which is known as a great comedy, was “a documentary,” at least to someone who had been on the inside of Hollywood (In fact, I still recommend that, with the only proviso being that the reality’s gotten worse).

    Having seen lobbyists up close and personal in Sacramento 30 years ago (which as bad as it was back then seems positively innocent in retrospect, since most of the sinning just involved boozing up the schmucks, er, I mean leaders of their communities, and giving them women, then fixing the DUI tickets later, as a couple good lobbyist friends told me), I can tell you that “Thank You For Smoking” is as accurate a documentary of that world as “The Player” is of its world. Sometimes you can only use satire to get at a truth that is beyond belief otherwise.

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