Lobbying

PUBLIC OPINION, and how to curry it, is the lifeblood of the political machine in any capital, and nowhere more so than in Washington, D.C. Lobbyists can be described as political persuaders, trying to influence the public opinion as well as the opinions and actions of people in positions who make and carry out public policy. They are paid to do this by the interests that have a direct connection to the results that come from the making and carrying out of public policy.

In the United States, there are a dozen or so foundations that provide the lion's share of conservative funding. To name a few, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Scaife Family Foundations, and the Smith Richardson Foundation give so much in aggregate terms to lobbyists that they have become known as the “four sisters.” Others are the Adolph Coors Foundation, which led the launch of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank; the Charles G. and David H. Koch Foundations; the J.M., Phillip M. McKenna, Earhart, and Carthage Foundations; and the Claude R. Lambe charitable foundations.

These conservative funders have helped a new generation of right-wing activist intellectuals, though the conservative think tank world is not entirely funderdriven. A picture has emerged that U.S. institutions have been influential, by shopping ideas to politicians and officials at all levels of government and to the various candidates in the presidential campaigns from these think tanks. A very real and recent instance of this can be found in the George W. Bush administration with Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, both of whom are Hoover Institution alumni. The conservative think tanks, of which many are lobbyist groups, organizations, or individuals, grew from the recent period in world history that has seen the United States withdrawing from the momentous economic and political changes across the world, a retreat from Keynesian economic policies. The generally accepted purpose of [Page 745]think tanks is to promote ideas, and they have flourished since their start, to a point that there are some 3,500 think tanks worldwide. The Brookings Institution was instrumental in lobbying and advocating for the Jimmy Carter administration to start down the path of deregulation with initiatives that had their seeds in the Brookings think tank. The Heritage Foundation saw its influence in the Ronald Reagan administration grow through the successful adoption of the Strategic Defense Initiative and tax reforms. These well-funded think tanks promote their political agenda, which is set primarily by corporate and/or commercial interests.

Some of these lobbyist groups include groups or organizations that portray themselves as grassroots organizations, although those are fabrications of the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, financial, and insurance lobbies. They come dressed looking like citizens' groups, but in fact are just the offshoot public relations arms of corporate lobbyists. They are there to act as the lobbyists or political persuaders who frame a picture of populist sentiment for advocating measures that are, in many instances, not in alignment with the American public's wishes.

The lobbyists or political persuaders are good at framing issues to affect the balance of competing ideas or values. By rearranging these public values, or the values of the bureaucrats or elected officials, an effect on public opinions and policies can be made through effective and persuasive political communications. Arthur Lupia and Mathew D. McCubbins (1998) suggest that the function of political communications is enlightenment, and by extension that is also the role of the lobbyist or think tank organization, and works well when the recipients of the message or lobbying have values that are well ordered and consistent with respect to the issue or policy.

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