Walk a day

[Note: This post contains one of the lesser-known but quintessential Reagan stories. It was originally published on Feb 3, 2007. I'm reposting it today to mark the centeniary of Reagan's birth.]

Back in the early 1980s, the Age of Reagan Ascendant, some wealthy enthusiast endowed the Ronald Reagan Chair of Broadcasting at the University of Alabama . (Oh, how I teased my friends at UA over that one.) There was quite a bit of hoopla: The first holder of the position gave an inaugural lecture to the public, and Himself came down from Washington (or back from California, whichever) to give the enterprise his blessing.

As I recall long-time p3 friend Doctor TV telling me the story: There were photo ops aplenty, one of them involving a trip to a local McDonald's for lunch. In walked the Leader of the Free World, with his entourage, followed by a gaggle of reporters and photographers. Whether briefed ahead of time or by simply listening to the fellow in line in front of him, Reagan successfully ordered a Big Mac, fries, and Coke.

The minimum wage-earning teenager behind the counter handed the Chief Executive his tray of food--and then watched in bewilderment as the latter smiled, nodded, and walked away without paying.

Reagan's handlers immediately slipped up to the counter and gave the kid his money. Someone close to the presidential visit later remarked that, by that time, Reagan hadn't had to carry cash on him in years. This, from the man who gave the phrase "welfare queen" to the American political lexicon.

I bring that story up so I can mention this one:

Last Friday and Saturday, the eight Democrats who have in varying degrees announced their intention to run for president came before the executive board of the most powerful and strategic organization in American liberalism -- the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). No sooner had this first of countless candidate cattle calls been completed than the SEIU's president, Andy Stern, flew off to Iowa for several days, followed by a couple of more days in New Hampshire.

No, Stern insists, he's not running for president. Rather, he's setting in motion an SEIU program called "Walk a Day in My Shoes," in which the union will encourage (or hector) the candidates to spend a day with a working-class family in one of the first four states (Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Carolina) to hold primary and caucus elections in 2008.

Here's a cherished but impractical opinion I've held for for some time: Anyone, regardless of party, planning to run for federal office should first have to endure something like what Barbara Ehrenreich did for the writing of Nickled and Dimed: Give them $40 and one change of clothes, drop them in a town a long way from home, and let them find work, food, and shelter for a month on their own, without breaking the law or trading on their name or connections.

If they make it through that, then we can talk about forming an exploratory committee.

If they won't stay bought once you bought them, what's the point?

Via MyDD comes this surprising pronouncement from one of the uber-lobbyists of K-Street:

The blog, for which [lobbyist Gerald Cassidy] and other Cassidy & Associates lobbyists will write, is a way to combat the misperception that lobbyists simply go into members’ offices and “peddle influence.”

“This journal,” Cassidy blogs, will “contribute to a dialogue that will hopefully get us back to the day when information is better currency than money in Washington.”

“There are 18,000 lobbyists in Washington. But for the last couple of years we’ve been talking about one lobbyist,” Cassidy says, referring to Jack Abramoff, the former super-lobbyist who has pled guilty to conspiracy charges.

“I don’t think Washington would work very well without lobbyists because they are the source of much of the information so many members rely on,” Cassidy told The Hill.

But, as the headline on the initial entry suggests, Cassidy’s first blog entry voices his support for congressional efforts to clean up the perception that K Street is dirty, even if that isn’t the reality.

“Unfortunately, the terms ‘lobbyist’ and ‘K Street’ conjure up such negative feelings and stereotypes that the achievements of our profession’s advocacy have been lost amongst recent scandals,” he writes.

“Our profession is at a critical point where we can either embrace the constructive changes and reforms by Congress or we can seek out loopholes and continue the slippery slide into infamy alongside the ranks of snake-oil salesmen.”

Cassidy says his blog entries won’t back specific policies favored by his clients. He instead plans to share his opinions on larger political issues. He says he intends to push for public financing of political campaigns to rebuild public trust in government and for more government oversight of hedge funds.

I've always figured that there had to be some resentment from the lobbyists' side on the whole K-Street Project/Iron Triangle forged by Norquist and DeLay. Sure, the lobbyists got unprecedented access and influence. But on the other hand, DeLay and his cronies felt entitled to exert a lot of pressure on matters that the lobbyists probably imagined were their own prerogatives--like hiring (since DeLay famously let it be known that lobbying firms who hired Democrats would be frozen out of the process).

And there was the money. The K-Street Project probably didn't cost the lobbying firms less money; it likely cost them more (albeit with a more certain return). As the facts of the Abrahmoff scandal made clear, while every client that Abrahamoff's people represented immediately began giving more money to Republicans and less to Democrats, the donations to Democrats didn't drop off entirely. Even at the height of Norquist's and DeLay's power, the lobbying firms had to cover their bets, just in case the unthinkable happened: the Democrats one day returned to power in Congress.

So, on one side, they had the implicit (and sometimes explicit) threat from DeLay that lobbyists who donated to Democrats or hired Democrats would see their access to Republican lawmakers (which, in those days, simply meant "lawmakers") cut off. But, on the other side, they didn't dare sever their ties with Democrats entirely.

To the extent that K-Street lobbyists fancy themselves captains of industry who get to call their own shots, this would have to be an irksome situation.

As the punchline to an old joke goes: Not everyone who gets you into trouble is your enemy, and not everyone who helps get you out of it is your friend. If the lobbying lobby wants to throw its weight behind election reform, if only to limit the number of people they have to pay off as a normal part of doing business, fine. Same with Wal-Mart throwing in with Andy Stern and SEIU on health care reform. We welcome them on a trust-but-verify basis.

Because there's also an old story about a frog and a scorpion.