Arthur Cameron Quotes

I think there's a lot to learn from Rockefeller on how to pass legislation.

I'm a lobbyist and had a career lobbying. The guy who gets elected or the lady who gets elected president of the United States will immediately be lobbying. They would be advocating to the Congress, they'll be lobbying our allies and our adversaries overseas. They'll be asking the business community and labor unions.

What Congress does is respond to pressures that are upon it.

I've seen senators, whose character and intelligence I know reasonably well, vote a certain way just because staff tells them to.

You've got to pass legislation fast and not give the special interests time to cut you up.

The lobbyists are a kind of permanent other government.

We probably had very strong influences, shall we say, on about 100 Congressional offices.

I enjoyed the administrative work because it involved working with Congress, city council, and the mayor. I had never been a politician so it was fun - learning political maneuvering.

Lobbying is a legitimate profession... Many congressional spouses act as lobbyists.

Lobbying is just another form of advocacy. It’s like trying a lawsuit.

You can't use tact with a Congressman! A Congressman is a hog! You must take a stick and hit him on the snout!

Attacking lobbyists is a good lobbying technique.

[Referring to lobbying:] You get a job in Congress or on a presidential campaign, step up to the administration, and finally go on to easy money.

If you get your provision in the first draft of a bill, then the opposition has to get it out to defeat you.

We do not engage in lobbying as such. However, I do make contact with members of Congress when requested to do so.

Access is an earned, essential raw material for the lobbying process but vastly overrated as a finished product all by itself. No dam was ever built ... solely on the basis of access.

The friends of domestic industry should meet annually to prepare the necessary legislation for Congress after discussing the measures and gathering the facts. [This was one of the earliest suggestions for a special interest legislative program.

Lobbynomics

No particular prior experience—not business or academia, or think tanks, or law—suggests that an individual will master the bureaucratic politics of Washington DC.

Netscape was able to get the government working on its behalf.

Especially in the whip operation, you're in constant contact with the members and their chiefs of staff, so having a chief who's approachable and reaches out to other chiefs so people know what's going - know what they're looking for in the policy that comes to the House floor - is incredibly important.

I really focus on making sure that we pass good policy. I don't mind throwing my elbows around to get it done.

I understand the politics of Washington, D.C. You need to hold firm, you need to work with your colleagues, and you need to throw elbows.

It is hard sometimes to get the Congress to do what you want to do and you have to keep working at it.

You can get from a politician whatever you demand in this country. The great irony is that everybody complains about how it runs but not enough people direct their force and power directly at the politicians and make demands upon them. Ours is a system that abhors remoteness. If you're remote from this political system, it'll kill you.