Meanwhile, the centerpiece of the president's economic plan--his five-year, $70 billion BTU tax--was stripped out of the Senate version of the bill following a sophisticated $2 million lobbying effort by a coalition representing business groups, farming interests, oil concerns, manufacturers, and taxpayer organizations. The lobbying campaign included television, radio, and newspaper advertisements and focused on two key Democratic members of the Finance Committee, using time-honored techniques of "inside" lobbying and "outside" grass-roots organization to defeat the measure. The result: The BTU tax did not even make it out of the Finance Committee.

       Certainly these two situations have left a bad taste in the president's mouth, but Clinton's dislike for high-powered lobbying started long before he entered office. During the 1992 presidential campaign, Democrat candidate Clinton and Independent Ross Perot specifically attacked Washington lobbyists and their profession as part of "the problem" in Washington, which they promised to reform by "giving government back to the people."

       In their view, Washington's insiders regularly got together in dark, high-priced restaurants to pass campaign contributions to lawmakers in exchange for special considerations--tax loopholes, regulatory loopholes, and the like--all the while passing on the costs to an unsuspecting and innocent public. (Republican George Bush, by virtue of his incumbency--and the fact that several of his top campaign aides were high-profile Washington lobbyists--was decidedly handicapped in his ability to attack the governing status quo.)

       To look at public opinion polls, this line of attack stood Clinton and Perot in good stead. Lobbyists--regularly portrayed as fat, cigar-chomping stewards of sleaze, more interested in lining their own pockets and their clients' balance sheets than in doing what is "right"--generally rank lower even than members of Congress in public approval.