The clash of the computer titans -- Google versus Microsoft with Yahoo at stake as either a prize to be claimed or defended -- provides a good reminder of how much the computer revolution has opened up the ways of Washington.
Monday's New York Times' article on the bout -- Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo to bulk up against Google -- had an interesting note:
Google's lobbyists in Washington have also begun plotting how it might present a case against the transaction to lawmakers, people briefed on the company's plans said. Google could benefit by simply prolonging a regulatory review until after the next president takes office.
Which raises the question: Who are the lobbyists deploying on the issue? There are a couple of places you can go to find out. For the raw answers, go straight to the U.S. Senate's Office of Public Records' lobbying database and type in Google as a client. Then you can poke around and see who's on the payroll and for how much cash. A few minutes' research found that Google's lobbying lineup includes a former deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ's anti-trust division; two former U.S. senators (Dan Coats, Republican of Indiana and Connie Mack, Republican of Florida), a former chief counsel to Sen. John McCain (who used to chair the Commerce Committee), and a former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus. There are more lobbyists, but these are just the names I either recognized or who were required to disclose their previous governmental positions.
Microsoft isn't helpless here, fielding a team that includes top former congressional staffers for legislators ranging from Tom DeLay to Richard Gephardt, a former top Immigration and Customs official, Democratic superlobbyist Tommy Boggs, a former assistant secretary of Homeland Security, former Sen. Slade Gorton (from Washington state, natch) ... and the list goes on.
(Yahoo? Yeah, they've got their share of beltway sluggers, too.)
You can go macro too, over at the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org, under lobbying. Google spent at least $800,000 on DC lobbying in 2006 (the last year for which all the numbers are in); Yahoo spent $2.1 million that year. All of that combined is what Microsoft's DC team calls chump-change -- they plunked down $8.8 million in 2006.