Gosh. It's hard being a lobbyist these days. No more expensing steak dinners for Senators, dropping boxes of Godiva off for staffers, or putting half the House Finance Committee on a Gulfstream bound for a Aruba and a dubious "fact-finding mission." Some candidates are even wary of taking their money. How can they work under these conditions?! Perhaps they can dry their tears of privation on the sharp green edges of the 2.9 billion dollars they made this year.

Don't get that money too soggy though kids -- you'll need it to donate to party conventions, congressional candidates, PACs, 527s... Yeah, Jack Abramoff, Brent Wilkes and their ilk may have made the "game" of Washington just a bit trickier with the bits of reform their influence-peddling triggered but where there's legalized bribery a will, there's a way!