How to Be a Lobbyist Without Trying

From Rolling Stone courtesy of Working For Change:

The activist handed me a printout with the details: "Please join us for Senator Burns's Birthday!!!" It was $1,000 a ticket for organizations, $500 for individuals. RSVP Amy Miller, the Bellwether Group.

It sure would be interesting to go to that party, I thought.

"So go to the party!" said my Friend in Politics. "Just say you're a lobbyist and go. Who's stopping you?"

We hashed out a plan. All I needed to do, he said, was print out a few business cards, and maybe -- for just-in-case verisimilitude -- type out a jazzy-looking fact sheet with a plan for some bogus project my "clients" would be pushing. "But make it as ridiculous as possible," my Friend insisted. "The magic words are: 'My clients will be seeking some regulatory relief' and 'Our project has an energy-independent profile.' Trust me, a guy like Conrad Burns will pop a boner in ten seconds flat."

Click here for the rest.

This is as funny as it is depressing. It's classic Rolling Stone political reporting, the kind I remember reading when I was a teenager, irreverent, personal, guerilla. It's important to note that it was written in the post Abramoff era: this shit is still going on, and apparently none of the hooplah and reform rhetoric amount to anything at all. This guy goes in with a fake story about drilling for oil in the Grand Canyon and actually makes some headway, gets a little "access" as they say in the business. This story is like something out of The Simpsons, but, sadly, completely true. Go check it out.



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