Ralph Reed@Microsoft
Maybe it's good luck, maybe it's good management, but Microsoft has found itself a singularly well-placed lobbyist.
About a year and a half ago, the software behemoth hired conservative consultant Ralph Reed to help articulate the company's point of view. Now, Reed is also working as a strategist for George W. Bush. That's a very handy connection, but it may end up being of limited use to Microsoft.
Reed and his consulting firm, Century Strategies, are supposed to burnish Microsoft's image and promote its views on public policy, and, of course, on the federal antitrust suit it faces. Reed is hardly alone - Microsoft has hired a number of consultants and lobbyists in Washington, both Democrats and Republicans, including some former members of Congress. Reed was not hired because of his work for Bush, the company says. Century Strategies started working for Microsoft in the fall of 1998, "months before Governor Bush even created his exploratory committee," said Mark Murray, a Microsoft spokesman.
Still, once Reed started working for Bush, he may have looked like a particularly valuable lobbyist, with special access to a man who might be president.
But Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said Tuesday, "Ralph never lobbied the governor. He never spoke to the governor. He generated letters."
Century Strategies released a statement Tuesday agreeing that no one from the firm "had ever contacted the governor or his staff and asked him to take a position on the Microsoft litigation."
Instead, according to a report in Tuesday's New York Times, Century Strategies has been identifying influential Bush supporters and asking them to write letters to the governor criticizing the federal government's case against Microsoft.
Century Strategies has now rethought that letter-writing campaign and says it's sorry. The company's statement says that in the process of lobbying candidates, including Al Gore and Bill Bradley, "a small number of individuals were encouraged to make their views known to Governor Bush. Century Strategies should not have encouraged any citizen to contact Governor Bush, we should have been more sensitive to possible misperceptions, and it is an error that we regret." The letter-generating approach has now been abandoned, the statement said.
Fleischer thinks that was the right call. He told CBS News Tuesday, "Mr. Reed has come to the right conclusion about what he needs to do. The campaign is pleased with the action he has taken."
Last week, a federal judge ruled that Microsoft had violated antitrust rules when it bundled its Internet browser into its Windows software. Now Microsoft is working double time to convince Americans everywhere that just because it's big and successful, it isn't a monopoly.
You've seen those feel-good TV ads with Bill Gates in a nonthreatening sweater touting the company's apple-pie values. And, hedging its bets, the company has contriuted over $700,000 to both political parties, with a smidgen more going to the Republicans. Microsoft employees have contributed $41,300 directly to Bush, and $21,500 to Al Gore. The Center for Responsive Politics says Gates has not, so far, contributed to either candidate.
Is it Microsoft's hope that Bush will win the election and then throw out the federal antitrust suit? Company spokesman Mark Murray said, "No. We do not expect the lawsuit to be affected by the 2000 presidential election. We believe that issue has already been framed, and that Microsoft will have to win that case in the legal system."
Bush, like Gore, has declined to comment on the case since it's still in litigation. He did say, while visiting Microsoft's home state of Washington, "the question should be innovation as opposed to litigation," but that's not quite a rallying cry for Gates and company.
The irony may be that Reed's prominence in the campaign could hamper his effectiveness for Microsoft.
"It actually puts Bush in an awkward position," observed Larry Makinson of the Center for Responsive Politics. "If he does anything dramatic that benefits Microsoft, it'll look like a quid pro quo, so that almost makes it more difficult for him to give them what they want."