Jack Abramoff: “Whether you’re a company, a union, or an individual, to get your bennie–your perk–into a bill, the first thing you need to do is find a bill that’s going to get signed by the president. Ninety-nine percent of what’s proposed in Congress doesn’t make it to the White House, so you’re looking for one of the few bills that’s going to make it all the way through the House, the Senate, the conference committees, and wind up on the president’s desk. We call that a moving train. If you’re a lobbyist pushing something like this, you want your moving train to be a 2,000-plus-page bill. You want to find a way to sneak your bennie into a teeny boxcar in the back that nobody’s going to notice.”
About Political Wire
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.