WEINER FOR MAYOR 2005 LOBBYIST/STAFFERS

Michael Whouley is Anthony Weiner's field manager for his petitioning effort.
The lobbying firm he founded, the Dewey Square Group, is prominent nationally, and Whouley is - like many of the staffers at DSG - a veteran of many major Democratic electoral campaigns. But an affiliate of the firm said privately that roughly 90 percent of its profits come from work with corporations and nonprofit groups (1). He was known by Gore as "the Brain" (2), and considered "the magical Michael Whouley" by Kerry (3). His name was among those mentioned in an Enron lobbying strategy memo as having Mr. Gore's ear (4). Whouley was also an advisor to President Clinton.

Whouley has been a registered lobbyist for Visa, Mastercard, AT&T, and Northwest Airlines, among others. DSG has been registered for lobbying in New York, lobbying for General Motors over CO2 emissions legislation, and for Barnes and Noble.

DSG is now a multinational, allowing European clients "to penetrate further into the US market." (7).

At a dinner hosted by Enron and attended by about 20 people during the Gore 200 campaign, Mr. Whouley -introduced by Richard S. Shapiro, Enron's top lobbyist - gave presentations about the campaign and took questions. While Whouley said he "couldn't speculate on what their motives were, except the usual Washington meet-and-greet," (8) he did note that the company was highly regarded at the time (9).

Whouley opened White House doors for wealthy lobbying clients while serving as one of Vice President Al Gore's top political strategists. While he formally became Gore's campaign manager Aug. 2, 1996 - and took a leave of absence from lobbying until November - shortly before arranging one of the White House meetings, he accompanied Gore on a late May campaign swing to New Hampshire. He returned for a few days in June to talk to high-ranking party officials and begin laying the groundwork for the Gore presidential campaign (10).

In 1993, Whouley was in charge of in charge of patronage hiring. "People who helped us were the priorities. You make sure you take care of the people who took care of you," he said (11). Though such lists have long been common practice in past White Houses, critics cited the scope and intensity of the Clinton administration's aggressiveness in rewarding supporters (12).

DSG specializes in grasstops and grassroots lobbying. They don't actually lobby public officials themselves - they find other people to do it. Using a strategy of "thinking globally and acting locally," says Minyon Moore, Head of State and Political Practice at DSG, they "go into communities and find people of influence" to make DSG's clients points for them (13).

"The best person to bring to a national official is a credible community member," says Brian Mccabe, a partner at DCI group, a Republican consulting firm that frequently works in tandem with DSG for their corporate clients (14).

Karen Skelton, a Principal at DSG, tells a story of working with Starbucks, who wanted to open a store in San Fransisco. "We went to community meetings at people's homes to identify influential community members." And through these people, they shined a light on the positive side of Starbucks - like the fact they provide health coverage to part-time workers (15).

A grasstop lobbyist is an "influencer". One could be considered a campaign donor, an advisor, or someone who has helped the candidate out of tough bind - generally someone "who can call in a favor" or somebody "the candidate can't say no to" (16).

Mccabe says the first step he takes when looking for people of influence is to look into his client's staff and their vendor's - or any organization that is dependent on the client's economic status (17).


Also working for the Weiner campaign, Is Mark Benoit, the campaign manager. In between the Weiner campaign, and his involvement in the Clark 2004 Presidential campaign as NY State Director, he has been working with the influential Ken Sunshine Public Relations firm. Ken Sunshine has recently been the state Senate payroll, for Minority Leader David Paterson, at the same time he was a registered lobbyist for the Jets (18). Benoit is also working For Betsy Gotbaum's bid for re-election for Public Advocate.










(1) The Boston Globe, July 28, 2004, DEWEY SQUARE QUIETLY FLEXES ITS POLITICAL MUSCLE, Glen Johnson
(2) Los Angeles Times, November 17, 2000, DECISION 2000 / AMERICA WAITS, ELIZABETH MEHREN and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
(3) ibid, Johnson
(4) The New York Times, February 18, 2002, Enron Pursued Plan To Forge Close Ties To Gore Campaign, RICHARD L. BERKE
(5) Dewey Square Group Press Release, September 22, 2003
(6) The Boston Herald, November 20, 1997, Bay State lobbyist opens doors to Gore, Andrew Miga
(7)The Washington Post, January 21, 2000, Iowa Ground WarTests the Generals, Thomas B. Edsall
(8) The Boston Herald, April 15, 1997, Clinton donors 'considered' for job, perks, Andrew Miga
(9) Ibid, Berke
(10) Roll Call, February 18, 2002, Enron Courted Gore;
Sought Ties to Veep's Hill Allies, John Bresnahan
(11) Millen Institute Panel: The New Government Relations: Think National, Act Local,
(12) ibid, Milken
(13) ibid, Milken
(14) ibid, Milken
(15) ibid, Milken
(16) Daily News, March 6, 2005, Dem pol flags Jets PR guru on state dole, Joe Mahoney

BLOOMBERG 2004 LOBBYIST/SAFFERS

Bloomberg has three staffers that were either former lobbyists or currently lobby. In addition to that, two staffers from his 2001 campaign became lobbyists.

From the 2001 campaign, Maureen Connelly and Kathleen Cudahy, have been retained by clients to lobby his administration. Ms. Connelly and Ms. Cudahy work for the same firm, Tenth on the list was Connelly McLaughlin Communications, which was ranked 10th on the list of the highest earning lobbying firms in NYC this year (1). When asked if he would request his former campaign consultants to refrain from lobbying, he replied ''I'd be happy to do that.'' But within hours, the mayor's office was backing away, insisting that what Mr. Bloomberg had said was not really what he meant. ''The mayor doesn't think it is necessary to make that request,'' Ed Skyler, the mayor's spokesman, said (2).

On the 2005 campaign Bill Cunningham and Josh Isay have been lobbyists.

Bill Cunningham, Bloomberg's chief campaign consultant, was Senior VP of Public Policy at Fleet bank, some time between 1995 and 2001. Prior to his job as lobbyist, he was a senior staff member for both Governor Hugh Carey and Governor Mario Cuomo, he was Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Department of Transportation and Assistant Director of Economic Development at the New York State Commerce Department. Cunningham served as Chief of Staff for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1995. He first went to work for Bloomberg in 2001 for his first campaign.

Josh Isay was Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs for DoubleClick between 2000 and 2001 (3). But according to the Industry Standard, Isay was still with Doubleclick in May 2001 - while he was working on Alan Hevesi's 2001 campaign for mayor (4). Doubleclick, a leading internet ad company, was under investigation - over privacy issues - by the FTC while Isay lobbied for them (5). They settled a 30 month long investigation with Attorneys General from 10 states for $450,000 and agreed to implement safeguards in August of 2002 (6). Doubleclick settled a private class-action lawsuit with $1.8 million earlier that year (7). Doubleclick purchased Abacus Direct, a marketing company, and planned to merge the names from Abacus's offline data with its anonymous online user activity, but backed down due to bad publicity (8). Additionally, Isay is a partner at the political consulting firm Isay, Klores, Prince - which has an address at Reed Smith, LLP (9), a firm with major national lobbying operations. Before Doubleclick, Isay was chief of staff to Senator Charles Schumer, was campaign manager for Andrew Cuomo's failed 2002 gubernatorial bid, and worked on Democrat Robert Torricelli's successful U.S. Senate campaign. He turned down a top post in Al Gore's presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton's Senate bid, and a job offer to run the Democratic Senators Campaign Committee to lobby for Doubleclick.

On a related side-note regarding personal information, the Bloomberg campaign has spent over $5 million on a voter database. It is paying Penn, Schoen, and Berland Associates to combine formatted voter information from the Board of elections with answers to a survey conducted by phone (10).

Kevin Sheekey, political advisor to the mayor, became a lobbyist for Bloomberg, LLP in 1997. Prior to his affiliation with Bloomberg, Sheekey was Chief of Staff to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.










(1) The New York Times, May 26, 2005, City Lobbyists' Earnings Double To $33.6 Million in Five Years, MIKE McINTIRE
(2)The New York Times, June 9, 2004, Mayor Retreats on Restricting Consultants From Lobbying, Mike Mcintire
(3) Daily News, January 4, 2001, DOUBLECLICK LOBBYIST HEADS BACK TO POLITICS, JOEL SIEGEL
(4) The Industry Standard, May 28, 2001, Singing the K Street Blues, Aaron Pressman
(5) The New York Post, March 7, 2000, DOUBLECLICK BEEFS UP POLITICAL CONNECTIONS, MARY HUHN
(6) Doubleclick Press Release, August 26, 2002
(7)The Washington Post, August 27, 2002, Web Ad Firm to Limit Use of Profiles, Robert O'Harrow Jr.
(8) The New York Post, March 7, 2000, DOUBLECLICK BEEFS UP POLITICAL CONNECTIONS, Mary Huhn
(9) New York Department of State Corporation filing
(10) The New York Sun, June 20, 2005, Bloomberg Camp Spends Millions On Voter Data, JULIA LEVY

Lobbyists Working on Political Campaigns

I started research during the 2005 Democratic Primaries trying to create a comprehensive portrait of the number of lobbyists working on each of the major mayoral canididates campaigns. These two reports - on Bloomberg and Weiner - are the farthest I reached. I used the test of current office held when choosing the order of which campaigns to investigate.

Weiner for Mayor 2005 Lobyist/staffers
Bloomberg 2004 lobbyist/staffers