(LOBBYIST and RICH GUY sit at a table in a private meeting room in the offices of a large lobbying firm. The meeting started about 10 minutes ago and they are past formalities.)
LOBBYIST
So let me get this straight, you want us to lobby…against lobbying?
RICH GUY
Yeah.
LOBBYIST
But you get that we’re a lobbying firm, right?
RICH GUY
Exactly.
LOBBYIST
Exactly what?!
RICH GUY
I’m trying to hire lobbyists.
LOBBYIST
Right, but to lobby against lobbying.
RICH GUY
Yeah so?
LOBBYIST
You get that that’s crazy right?
RICH GUY
What, all of a sudden you’ve developed a conscience?
LOBBYIST
A conscience? No, it’s a matter of self-preservation.
RICH GUY
Self preservation? Then why does your firm work with oil companies? Or that chemical company that dumped 50,000 gallons of toxic sludge into our drinking water? You lobbied for them didn’t you?
LOBBYIST
Oh, what is this, a political statement?
RICH GUY
No, I could give a shit about politics. I’m listening to what you’re saying and it doesn’t make sense to me. Your business is to take money to push people’s political agenda.
LOBBYIST
We make sure people’s interests are appropriately represented, yes.
RICH GUY
Yeah, appropriate to your level of compensation.
LOBBYIST
We are a business.
RICH GUY
Exactly. So all you should care about is your bottom line.
LOBBYIST
And our continued existence.
RICH GUY
Your existence as in your company, yes?
LOBBYIST
Right.
RICH GUY
You don’t really give a shit about lobbying as an industry.
LOBBYIST
Well the industry has to exist for our company to exist.
RICH GUY
Yes, but if your company went poof just as the industry went poof, then there’d be no issue. Right?
LOBBYIST
Why would I let my company go poof?
RICH GUY
That’s a great question. Why would you?
LOBBYIST
To be honest with you, I’m lost. And I’m starting to feel like you’re fuckin’ with me. I took this meeting because I thought you were serious about our services. You have a lot of legitimate interests we’d be excited to represent, but if you don’t want to discuss those...
RICH GUY
Bullshit! Legitimate interests. You took this meeting because I’m fuckin’ rich and that’s the only thing you bothered to research about me. You’d take money from Moms Against Guns one day and the NRA the next. You speak one language and yet you haven’t asked me the one question that matters in all of this?
LOBBYIST
Which is?
RICH GUY
How much money am I gonna to pay you to go fucking poof.
(Silence.)
It’s funny to watch your little rat brain trapped in a cage. Stop for a moment and ask yourself, how much money would it take for you to do what I’m asking.
LOBBYIST
This is not a project we are willing to consider at this...
RICH GUY
Just fucking consider the question! Jesus. For a greedy little morally bankrupt mercenary, you’re being awfully closed-minded about this. How much money would I have to pay you to poof away your company and the whole damn industry?
(Lobbyist stops and thinks for a second.)
Don’t be shy. Use that little MBA of yours.
(Silence.)
LOBBYIST
I guess it would be the expected value of the lifetime of the business. You’d basically be buying our company and shutting it down.
RICH GUY
Poof. That wasn’t so hard was it? I think I even saw your pants twitch a little.
LOBBYIST
But that’d be more than your net worth.
RICH GUY
If we cap it at your expected lifetime running the business, say an early retirement at 60, and exclude any unreasonable bonuses you’d expect to give yourself, it falls $1.2M shy of my net worth, which is plenty for me.
LOBBYIST
You’re basically giving me your fortune to shut down the lobbying industry.
RICH GUY
That’s right. I don’t particularly care for money, actually. And I find a lot of it unwieldy. I like my creature comforts and that’s about it. I want to swing my money ax once and shorten the power sticks of all the other rich assholes ruining our country. I’m not deluded enough to think it’ll fix everything, or even much of anything, but it’d be worth every penny just to watch them squeal about how unfair this is. Watch them quote Franklin or Jefferson as they scramble to preserve their fiefdoms. Who knows? Maybe it’ll inspire some other rich asshole to swing their own ax righteously.
So. You in?
