As the Speaker leaves, before he can’t hear me, I will say thank you. And thanks again, John. He has something else to do tonight. And I think everybody here hopes that those talks are very, very successful. I’m very grateful for the Bryce Harlow Foundation for this award. As you can tell from my grey hair, I’m old enough to have known every previous foundation honoree personally. True. And, in fact, I’ve had the pleasure not only of meeting all of them, but working with many of them. I’m also very aware therefore that this award puts me in extremely distinguished company.

Receiving the Business-Government Relations award and joining the ranks of distinguished people whose shoulders everyone in this room stands on is both amazingly exciting, deeply humbling and truly an honor. And I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to the foundation for the opportunity to share the dais tonight with people that I really admire very much in Washington — Speaker Boehner and then later Senator Kyl and Senator Lieberman. Being here with them makes this a moment that I will treasure and do treasure.

I should say that one of the things I wanted to remind the Speaker of before he had to leave was that we both know what it’s like to grow up in large families. I had seven brothers and sisters and the Speaker had me beat because he had an even dozen. But I think that experience accounts for certainly his ability and maybe part of mine to be very good at two very important political skills, knowing when to assert yourself to get something done, like get that last piece of pie for dinner, and knowing when to compromise to get something done.

And that’s what indeed the Speaker is going to have to do tonight. And although he’s very good natured about it, to say so, he is in a very, very difficult position and a very, very serious issue.

I also want to extend my congratulations to Senator Jon Kyl. You’re going to have a chance to hear in just a few minutes about the many ways that he has advanced business-government relations during his long and distinguished career. And I only can add that I’ve been lucky enough to see first-hand some of the many ways that he has built understanding and trust and respect between business and government during his years in both the House and Senate.

Tonight I’ve got the added great luck also to express my personal gratitude for his service, and indeed as the Speaker said and as some of the speakers on the film said. You will indeed be missed. You’ve done great things for your state and for the nation. And it is an honor to share this occasion with you tonight.

I have very, very great appreciation for what indeed the Speaker and Senator Kyl and Senator Lieberman and all of the elected officials here, current and former have done. It’s partly because there is no way that I could do what they do as well as they do it. My total experience as an elected official was that I was elected to the student council my senior year in high school.

And so when it comes to comparing my firsthand experience with that of the Speaker, with Senator Lieberman, with all of you who have served in elected office, I feel a little bit like a seagull looking at the space shuttle. We both know how to fly, but I have no idea how the other one does it. And I couldn’t hold that job. Nor could I hold my own job without having a great and profound appreciation for what it requires to be an elected official.

The incredible hours, the constant work, the pressure, the burdens on the family, the sacrifices that elected officials have to make for the country and for themselves to serve the country. Simply put, they have one of the most challenging and critically important professions in the nation.

But unfortunately, one of the important measures that society has on that critical job is one that doesn’t appreciate it. It is kind of strange that how we are compensated versus how our counterparts in government are compensated. And the irony of the Bryce Harlow awards is that those of us that are in government relations, in lobbying, generally make out a lot better than elected officials.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think we do a great job and many of you earn your paychecks. But compensation and performance is way out of balance when it comes to elected officials. They deserve so much more for what they do. They should not have to make the kind of financial sacrifice that is necessary to serve our country. And when we see dedicated, accomplished public servants who are forced to quit their jobs, to take care of their families, clearly something is wrong. And so, my thanks to you, sir, and your colleagues and for what you do for the nation.

I also want to acknowledge a couple of other folks in the room who are very, very important to me, not the least of which is my wife Terry. What you may not know is that Terry hired me for my first job at General Electric. First mistake she made. But obviously, her support and support of my family has been key to enjoying and being able to be however successful I have been at this profession.

I also want to thank my colleagues at PhRMA, and my colleagues, my former colleagues, still friends, at the Business Roundtable and almost everybody else in this room over the age of forty-one or forty-two with whom I have worked. Indeed, we all stand on your shoulders. And I very much have benefitted from not only learning from every one of you, but also having had the great pleasure of working for you and working with you.

And everybody in this room who has been distinguished and has been awarded and honored by this award in the past, everybody deserves it. But nobody can stand her as an awardee, now or in the future, without saying two very critical words, Jane Hoover. [applause] Where is Jane? Perhaps the most distinguished awardee.

Let me now turn also to a special group that’s being honored here tonight. It is a great pleasure to be here with the Bryce Harlow Fellows. And you guys are a tough act to follow. Congratulations on your fellowships. I want to salute you for pursuing careers in advocacy and public affairs and government relations or lobbying. Our profession and the nation need more people like you, and I’m glad that we are able to support your training.

However, while we celebrate you here tonight, I should warn you that the profession you’re going to enter is not the most popular one that you might have chosen. In fact, you’ve probably heard a lot about … and terrible things … about lobbyists and the special interests from a lot of glib pundits and office holders.

Let me give you one quote: “The government, which was designed for the people, has gotten into the hands of the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.” Sound familiar? Guess who said it? Actually, it was a politician named Woodrow Wilson, almost 100 years ago. And in the decade since Wilson, the rhetoric about lobbyists and other advocates has only gotten even more bitter. Almost everyone who runs for office these days, from either party, either makes an attack on special interest or uses attacks as the center part of their campaign.

And I understand why they do it. Cheap shots and scapegoats have been the staple of politics for years. But these attacks obscure something that is vitally important. And here’s how Mark Twain put it. He said, “No public interest is anything other or nobler than the mass accumulation of private interests.” And I think he was absolutely right. In a democracy, it is exactly the interaction of our rich and diverse array of competing interests from corporations, from unions, from liberal nonprofits, all interests that yield the public interest. It can’t be any other way.

And, in fact, only in an authoritarian state does the government or a single party determine the public interests. So to the young men and women that are here today, I want to say to you always remember when you do government relations with integrity, when you lobby, even when you represent a special interest, you’re helping to make democracy work the way that it should.

I was going to tell you a story that an old person tells, but I’m not going to do it at this point. But I want to instead close by quoting something that Bryce Harlow said in the early ’70s at a tribute dinner. He said, “I have become convinced that the only lasting reward from the trying business of serving the people is one’s inner conviction that he has served faithfully and well. And has kept the public trust and has left this a better place than when he came.”

That’s something that the Speaker was talking about; that’s something that Senator Kyl and others in this room have already achieved and I think it’s a goal for all of us. So, thank you for this great honor. And thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight.

Thank you, Vernon, for that extremely nice introduction. As you know, Vernon Jordan is a very special person and a man of many talents and many accomplishments. He’s had a long and notable career as an advocate for civil rights and has received numerous honorary degrees and awards, including the NAACP’s highest honor for distinguished achievement. He has also written two books and even performed at the Kennedy Center and, yes, his portrait does hang in the National Portrait Gallery. But more important to me, he is a great Akin Gump partner and a great friend, and I very much appreciate his coming here tonight to make that introduction.

You know, following Vernon Jordan on any podium is a daunting task, and watching that video was really a trip down memory lane, but also a little embarrassing. But – that notwithstanding, let me start by thanking the Board of the Bryce Harlow Foundation and its chairman, Ed Ingle, for this terrific award – which I humbly accept. It is especially gratifying to be honored by one’s peers.

Thanks also to Gloria Dittus who chaired this very successful event. I know how much work it takes to fill a room of this size. You did a great job.

And a very special thanks to the Foundation’s President, Linda Dooley. Linda is a wonderful person and she does an outstanding job in leading this fine organization. I served on the Bryce Harlow Foundation Board so I know first hand the important work they do to help young people become involved in public policy and also the work they do to spread the word about the value of professional advocacy. Thank you, Linda, for all that you do.

I also want to thank my friends who appeared in the video for their kind remarks – Steny Hoyer, Vic Fazio and Bill Paxon. Steny Hoyer is a great Majority Leader in some very tough times but, as you can observe from recent events, he is doing an absolutely terrific job. Vic Fazio and Bill Paxon – the dynamic duo – I believe they are just the very best “live pair” of advocates in this town. We are lucky to have them at Akin Gump.

And let me congratulate Senator Tom Carper. He is very deserving of the award he is receiving. He is a Senator’s Senator who, as you know, works hard to find common ground on the many difficult and complex issues facing our country today. It is a real honor to be able to share this evening with him.

I want also to acknowledge, and to thank, my wonderful wife of 41 years – Carol, who stayed married to me even when in the early days I read the Congressional Record in bed at night. I would not be standing before you tonight to receive this award without her love and support through the years.

And I want to recognize my son, David, who is here with his lovely wife Sarah. They are also representing our two daughters and our three grandchildren who could not be here.

And I want to especially acknowledge and thank my colleagues, and former colleagues, at Akin Gump. They are a special group of people with whom I have had the privilege of working during my more than 33 years at the firm, with special tribute to one who is not here tonight – Bob Strauss, a great friend and mentor who, at 91 years young, is still going strong.

Any professional success I enjoy has come from standing on the shoulders of others – like Speaker Carl Albert, Bob Strauss, Vernon Jordan, and, my many colleagues at Akin Gump. There is no finer institution than Akin Gump. We have accomplished much together over the years and, with an admitted bias, I believe Akin Gump represents the very best tradition of law and public policy representation.

And I must acknowledge and thank two people with whom I have the good fortune to work every day, Margaret Stosik and Marie Manganelli.

And finally, let me also congratulate the Bryce Harlow Fellows who were recognized tonight. You are on the right track – stay on it!

I think you’d agree that we lobbyists have had a challenging year. The administration’s attempts to demonize our profession as part of its effort to generate support for its political agenda have only served to intensify an already skeptical view of lobbyists held by the American public. The Administration’s attitude just reinforces a view that public officials are inherently susceptible to corruption by lobbyists and so-called “special interests.”

And this campaign of political convenience against lobbyists is meant to give the impression of purity. But this is illusory because it doesn’t apply to those who aren’t registered under the Lobby Disclosure Act, including campaign contributors. This inconsistency does a disservice to public policy making by discriminating against those individuals with the greatest obligation of transparency – lobbyists – and has therefore decreased openness in public policy making as people are now limiting their activities and deregistering themselves in order to avoid being stigmatized. This scapegoating of lobbyists and, by extension, the recipients of their supposed “undue” influence – public officials – is at best misguided. Our public officials are not inherently corruptible; they act in their constituents’ and the nation’s best interests. By the same token, lobbyists act in the best interest of those they represent, cognizant of the goals of good public policy making.

The fact is that our political system is built on a foundation of checks and balances, and therefore, so too, is good public policy making. No “special interest” gets a free ride. Every issue and position is tested at each stage of the process because invariably there is a counter-interest involved. And each of these counter-interests has its views made known – by professional advocates, by a critical press corps now operating on a 24/7 cycle, by the all-present internet, including ever increasing blogs, and by the public’s direct participation through town hall meetings, demonstrations, etc. These “checks” allow the system to produce a better and more balanced product. It’s called a compromise.

And even when a compromise – or as James Madison called it – “concurrence” – is not possible, and an initiative or a proposal stalls or is set aside as the result, that just may mean the will of the people has also been achieved.

Many of you are familiar with Bryce Harlow’s five characteristics of a good lobbyist:

Integrity
A willingness to work hard
Adaptability to change
Humility and perspective
An understanding of the processes of government

These weren’t just five good-sounding bullet points ginned up to be slapped on promotional material; they constituted the ethical and personal framework within which Bryce Harlow lived his life. I’d like to focus for a moment on the first of these characteristics – integrity – and its importance for our profession.

Integrity should be both the foundation and the superstructure of a lobbyist’s professional life. The absence of integrity, honesty and credibility is invariably raised whenever an individual in our profession goes off the rails and behaves in a way that is antithetical to these principles. But I must say that in my more than 40 years in Washington, I have observed relatively few “bad actors,” and, just as Bryce Harlow noted, they don’t last very long.

However, the fact that there are relatively few “bad actors” has not deterred the executive and legislative branches from regulating and legislating lobbying based on the worst conceived facts and circumstances. As a result, lobbying is one of the most regulated industries in the country, a fact that serves only to fan, not dampen, the public’s perception that public policy making is corrupt. This is an extremely unfortunate result because the existence of a corps of professional advocates is not only desirable, it is necessary for the health of our political system.

The participation in public policy making of educated, experienced, committed and, honest advocates, makes for better, sounder and more balanced decisions by public officials. Our participation in the process, as we all know, is constitutionally protected under a citizen’s right to petition the government, but, even beyond that protection, what it connotes is an indispensable service. A service that professional advocates contribute not only to those they represent, but also to better public policy making.

Bryce Harlow understood this. From his time working as a House staff member, as an advisor to presidents and finally as a professional advocate for Procter & Gamble, he recognized and exemplified the spirit of civic service that motivates the best lobbyists.

Let me state clearly – lobbying is an honorable profession. I wholeheartedly encourage those young people here tonight who are considering becoming lobbyists to do so. Our republic is forged and tempered by the contest of ideas. We need the very best among us to bring those ideas to that contest, and to do so, individually and collectively by following the Bryce Harlow principles. If we do that, I believe we will begin to restore the public’s confidence in public policy making and in the positive, and valuable, role that professional advocates contribute to it.

Thank you. Oh, that’s great. Well, before Nels and Rex Wackerle and Linda Dooley and Sue Schwab and the Board of the Harlow Foundation take away this magnificent award, I want to whole heartedly and enthusiastically accept it. Thank you.

I am thrilled, thrilled to be here with my extended family – All of you-colleagues, clients, board companions, special mentors like Bob Michel, the distinguished former Republican leader. Members of the Harlow family, fellow advocates, fellow former award winners, and even those who have gone over to the other side. We know who you are! And you are ALL friends– And not in the Washington meaning of the word. I am honored, and believe me humbled, to receive this extraordinary salute from Sue Schwab, somebody who, as she said, I have known for more years than she and I care to remember, who I think is one of the finest public servants I have ever come across and has served not just with Jack Danforth and in the Commerce Department, but also an outstanding USTR. Sue, we love you.

And to receive the salute of my brother and my best friend, Colin Powell and Jim McNerney, the chairman of Boeing, who I think simply is the best CEO in America and to receive the salute from the board of directors of this important organization. And I love, love sharing this evening with Steny Hoyer. He is also a great majority leader, a great friend. And I only wish I lived in his district because he represents the finest in representation in the United States Congress. Steny, thank you. But unfortunately, I live in the District of Columbia…

Twenty-eight years ago, this is going to date me now, I attended the very first of these dinners. It was not as large as tonight, to salute Bryce Harlow. I am proud to have witnessed from a true master the art of trust, respect and your word is your bond. Bryce was all about integrity, of doing the right thing, old time courtesy, professionalism, bringing people together, bipartisanship, the other guy, getting things done the right way, the quiet counseling, the passion for anonymity. At a time when the revolving door was allowed to swing freely, Bryce served Proctor & Gamble and then the White House. And then Proctor & Gamble and then the White House. And then Proctor & Gamble again, with dedication, with credibility and not even a scent of wrongdoing. That would be unthinkable about such a gentle giant, short in height, but huge in stature.

At that dinner twenty-eight years ago, Bryce told us these words. “I delight in the underlying purpose of this event which is to salute your own quality and your own professionalism. I know this nation has to have you providing the balance and expertise around this town – I know the federal system can’t fairly operate in the public interest without you – I know you are a resourceful and vital part of the unending struggle to preserve for us and our kids what really counts, liberty with justice and the pursuit of happiness.”

As you all know, Bryce created the office of Legislative Affairs in the White House under President Eisenhower and then worked for President Nixon. In 1981, I began my White House service by heading the House side of the White House Legislative Affairs. And thus became a descendent of the Harlow legacy. I used to be 6’4″, but quickly became Bryce’s height.

For me, Bryce was a counselor, a mentor, a special friend, a calm, seasoned wise old owl in the turmoil of everyday life in Washington. I often turned to him for quiet advice as I worked the vote on the Hill or tried to understand the forces surrounding a particular event. He explained the today, dissected the yesterday, and had an uncommon sense of tomorrow.

Bryce often picked up the phone and gave me advice as we were assembling the Reagan governing coalition. Had I thought about this or about that or how something may play out to the President’s detriment? He worried that we could not win because there were only 191 lonely Republicans and the odds were firmly against us in the house that Tip O’Neil owned. He counseled bipartisanship if you really wanted to get things done. He recommended bringing folks together to reason. He suggested conciliation and compromise, not confrontation or accommodation.

We took many of Bryce’s suggestions and we found bipartisan, but not with the liberal leadership of the House, but with the rank and file, the so-called “Boll Weevils” and so many others. We fundamentally took charge of the House. As President Reagan was winning battle after battle on the Hill with the help of Bob Michel and Trent Lott and Henry Gandy and so many other foot soldiers of the Reagan Revolution who are here tonight, Bryce cautioned me. He said, Ken, you fellows may be winning too much. Remember the other guy. His turn will come. Think about the public policy consequences, the political ramifications of this string of victories. There’s a price that will be paid Ken, he said. And then with a chuckle he added, “but it’s always nice to beat Tip O’Neil and Jim Wright.”

Years later in 1987, after I had left the White House the first time, I paid one last visit to Bryce in the hospital. It was a difficult time for Bryce and a wrenching period for President Reagan and the country in the depths of the so-called Iran/Contra scandal. President Reagan was at 37 percent in the polls. Not only a lame duck, but to many a dead duck. Bryce viewed the crisis in the White House with much concern and the stakes for America with much alarm. As I prepared to leave, Bryce said with halting breath and that twinkle in his eye, “you know, you’re having fun doing important work and making a good livelihood with your buddies Timmons and Korologos, but if the President calls, you’ll have to return to work at the White House. You owe it to the President, the presidency and the country.”

Just a few weeks later, shortly after Bryce’s death, I received that phone call telling me that the President wanted to see me. Leaving the Oval Office a few hours later, after agreeing to join Howard Baker leading the White House staff, I recall looking up to the heavens in front of the West Wing and saying, “thanks for the heads up, Bryce.”

Whether it’s the White House, in our businesses, in public service or in our public sector advocacy, we have all in this room gotten lots of “heads ups” from Bryce.

Integrity. Trust. Getting the facts in the argument right. Understanding the process, being straight with each other, our corporate and coalition leaders and with members of Congress, the Senate, staff and administration officials we’re working with, living to fight another day, another issue, good public policy comes first. We only have one president at a time and we need in all of our daily tasks to do and remember what is right for the country.

Now, I don’t mean to sound Pollyannaish or naïve, but these basic Bryce Harlow virtues could help everyone these days and especially our country and the tone in Washington. We are all in this together, regardless of whether we have a D on our forehead, an R on our forehead or a Scarlett L for lobbyist on our back. Give me a break!

What we all do being sherpas, being guides, being practitioners in the art of persuasion, representing our clients, knocking on doors, delivering a message, is essential to making sound public policy. An informed electorate, informed government officials – elected and appointed – are our best hope for sound public policy.

It’s said that the financial capital of the world has moved from Wall Street to Pennsylvania Avenue. D.C. has now replaced Detroit as Motor City. The decisions reached in our fair city determine so much of what happens in every corporation, every union, yes, every interest group, every family and at every kitchen table now more than ever.

We inhabit the vital intersection of government and business. We are the crosswalks. We keep the traffic flowing and occasionally we stop it. Some of us provide advice in board rooms on the growing public policy overlay to business decisions. Some of us provide the shoe leather. Some of us provide grassroots and grasstops, but never Astroturf! Some of us provide the research to make the arguments, to win the votes, to decide an issue. We are all Americans doing what Americans do best – – speaking our minds and getting others to speak forcefully as well, especially the folks back home.

So I say thank you for allowing me to represent all of you tonight in this noblest of professions. Don’t keep your head down. Keep your chin up, keep smiling, and keep trucking!

To the Harlow fellows, welcome to a career that can truly make a difference.

To the board of the Harlow Foundation, thank you for honoring me in this way. To my wife Jackie, the love of my life, thanks for sharing this journey with me and for making life so much happier, robust and richer.

To my son Andy, representing my four kids here tonight, God bless you as you begin a career in public service on the Hill and for twenty-one years being one of my shining stars. For my business partners, all of them, and especially Mike Berman, we are a team. I am grateful every day to learn something from each of you. You are simply the finest, the best. And I appreciate your letting me have my name on the door. So let me close with one more Bryce Harlow story. Late one evening in 1981, as the legislative staff and I were dissecting an upcoming vote, Bryce called and solemnly suggested to me that as long as I was on the White House staff, I should not have an alcoholic beverage. You never know, Bryce said, when the President would call. You need a clear head to give him your best judgment. So, I gave up drinking for the remainder of my White House years. Yes, the President did call and more than occasionally. Yes, in the Reagan last two years, I was the recipient of most of those 3:00 a.m. phone calls. Yes, I had a clear, if occasional, sleepy head.

But since none of us here tonight any longer are on the White House staff nor anyone here eligible to join the White House staff anytime soon, I know Bryce wouldn’t object if we raised a glass to Bryce Harlow and to all of us who have followed in his path. Thank you. And thank you very, very much. Thank you.

Well, Jack, thank you. Those remarks were moving to me and I’m so relieved you didn’t tell some of those stories you’ve been threatening to tell. No, but Jack, that was-I didn’t recognize the person you were talking about. But thank you. Senator Bennett, congratulations to you on your award. I feel very blessed to celebrate my career and my retirement with so many colleagues and friends. Linda Dooley, Peggy Hudson, Connie Tipton and other board members of the Bryce Harlow Foundation, thank you for this honor.

When I went to work for then Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd in 1979, the first issue I worked on was the Chrysler loan guarantee. He endorsed the bail out subject to Chrysler creating an employee stock ownership plan for its employees with 15% of its share. The ESOP was my contribution to the effort. In 1984 when Lee Iacocca sent Bob Perkins to run the Washington office, Bob told Bill Timmons of Timmons and Company and Howard Pastor that he wanted to hire a Hill Democrat.

Howard recommended me and the rest is history. My path to a career as a corporate lobbyist was not entirely predictable. As a student activist at Georgetown, I found myself on the Pan-American Highway in an old truck heading for South America on an independent study boondoggle. Salvador Allende was elected the first Socialist President of Chile and the first Socialist elected in Latin America in September of 1970. So my classmates and I decided that we would drive from Panama to Chile where we could observe the revolution firsthand. [LAUGHTER]

And we did. As an idealistic 21-year-old, I learned an important lesson from my six months in Chile. I learned that Vladimir Lenin was right in his book “State and Revolution” where he wrote about the dictatorship of the proletariat, “If you threaten capital so that international banks will not lend to you and dairy farmers slaughter their Holstein dairy cows for beef,” (which is what they were doing in Chile), “then you have to seize the instruments of power in society” – the military, the police, the courts, the means of production.

This was the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Well, since I didn’t like that approach much, I came to understand that you must bring change at a different pace and in a way that does not discourage the investment of capital. Several years later that lesson repeated itself for me. I was a young international lending officer at Chase Manhattan in New York sent to Jamaica to lend money to the private sector as Prime Minister Michael Manley campaigned on the slogan “Socialism is Love, Man”.

The results on the Jamaican economy were predictable and I didn’t make many good loans in Jamaica. So I left Chase and came to the Senate in 1975 through the intercession of my college roommate and close friend Jack Quinn. That began my 10 years on the Hill. Later working for Senator Byrd I witnessed the blood bath for Senate Democrats in the 1980 election. They found themselves in the minority for the first time in a generation and I found myself as staff director of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. Pat Griffin, who’s here tonight, who was then Secretary of the Minority, and I encouraged Senator Byrd to start having weekly caucus luncheons like the Republicans under Howard Baker had been doing since about 1978.

I bet you think these weekly caucus luncheons were a long lived tradition of the Senate. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In the ’70s and before, the Senate was run by powerful committee chairmen, not by party leaders, and largely on a bipartisan basis. The change to party-driven leadership controlled agenda in the Senate is a recent phenomenon and clearly these caucus luncheon party strategy sessions are a culprit in the partisan battles in the Senate.

Don’t get me wrong, they made being in the minority more fun, like the time we fed the Democratic caucus the Reagan school lunch where ketchup and relish were a vegetable. It led the network news that night and the school lunch menu was withdrawn immediately. In 1985 I went to work for Chrysler and fell in love with Bob Perkins, who ran the office then. A career international vice president and graduate of Dartmouth and Wharton, he was a veracious reader and a very savvy guy.

I learned so much from Bob and he encouraged me to learn what made our business tick. In 1987 I had a one-on-one session with Lee Iacocca. He asked me how old I was. I was 38. He snorted that when he was 36 he was vice president of the Ford Division and if I hoped to have a meaningful career at Chrysler, I better get my ass to Detroit! So I moved to Detroit in late 1987 where I worked for Lee and Jerry Greenwald, then the president of Chrysler, and I served as the committee secretary for a couple of our major management committees.

I returned to Washington and succeeded Bob as the vice president of the Washington office when he retired in 1992. I was lucky to work for a company that understood the power of healthy relationships with government and which invested in its Washington office the resources and the corporate support to get the job done. And I was really fortunate to work with industry leaders like Andy Card and Jo Cooper and Dave McCurdy (who now runs the AAM) who were able to harness the industry’s broad economic reach.

Many of us remember the debate over the 1990 Clean Air Act. The whole bill got hung up for a long time over future automotive emissions standards, called tier two. John Dingell, of course, was the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. All of the engineering and regulatory affairs people in the industry insisted that these standards, these new tier two standards which would take effect 12 years from the date of enactment, were unattainable and we fought their inclusion in the bill with great effort.

Finally, John Dingell bought us a little more lead time and some minor changes and the bill was enacted with the impossible tier two standards. Much to my chagrin, most of the companies were meeting or exceeding the impossible standards, only about five years after the bill was enacted, not 12 years, when we said we couldn’t do it. And in the late 1990s, Carol Browner, then EPA chief, used her regulatory authority to call for much stricter tier two standards, this time led by Jo Cooper who was the head of AAM at the time, the Alliance of Automotive Manufacturers.

The industry agreed to a regulatory negotiation with EPA that led to really revolutionary standards. But rather then fight like we did in 1990, we agreed to do our best to meet them with a tremendous impact on air quality. This was one of the brightest moments for the auto industry, for me and for my fellow auto lobbyists. By the time Daimler Benz came into my life in 1998, I had some pretty amazing experiences in my lobbying career. I took Joe DiMaggio to lunch in the Senators’ dining room along with Tom Eagleton and Jay Rockefeller.

I flew to Japan to meet a CODEL lead by Jack Danforth, then chairman of the trade subcommittee and staffed by Susan Schwab, now USTR. That group of Senators convinced the Japanese that they might want to continue to self-restrain their exports to the United States for another year or two.

I choreographed Lee Iacocca’s role as spokesman for NAFTA and his ads supporting the agreement. Lee and I were in the White House the night NAFTA passed the House and he spent the night in the Lincoln Bedroom that night. I participated in too many CAFE fights for words. I will say that my biggest disappointment in my lobbying career was failing to convince – and this was years ago – failing to convince the senior management at Chrysler that we needed to fundamentally change our product plan for the day when high gas prices and regulatory onslaughts or both, would bring the dyke crashing down on us.

A good lobbyist is part of senior management. His job is not simply to hop to and do the company’s bidding with government, but to interpret trends and likely outcomes with government and to inform corporate strategy. When Daimler bought Chrysler in 1998, my role in government relations changed dramatically. My reporting lines switched from Detroit to Stuttgart and my focus evolved from Washington to world capitals. I was still involved in CAFE battles early this decade, but much less so personally after that.

In fact, I’ve not registered as a lobbyist for four or five years. From 2003 on, my job was to manage our global government affairs activities and our corporate foundation. It would have made sense for me to live in Stuttgart, but I managed to stay here. During this Daimler-Chrysler period I was fortunate to work with great people who ran the Washington office, first Tim McBride and later John Bozzella. Tim now runs Freddie Mac’s government relations group and John is the head of Chrysler’s Washington office.

I’m proud of these great professionals who made my life easy and of others like Jake Jones who now runs the Daimler Washington office. Good people make good offices and we always had a bunch of them. As I spent almost half my time overseas in these last years, I’m grateful to be going to the German Marshall Fund as a fellow which will keep me involved with Europe. I also expect to devote time to the Federal City Council which, as Jack noted, I’ve tried to be active; the National Democratic Institute, Faith in Politics Institute and some other non-profits where I’ve been involved.

Which leads me to some final thoughts. If you’ve not had the opportunity to involve yourself with groups which improve the life of people in the Greater Washington Area, I hope you will convince your company that it is in its interest to support you in doing so. You’ll certainly benefit from it. Another thought, don’t accept the status of being the shoe-leather guy in Washington, who’s only expected to open doors and fix things when they go wrong. Figure out a way to become part of your management team, where your input is expected and respected.

This can take a lot of work, but it makes our job so much more rewarding. If you can’t get it done in your company, go somewhere where you can. I end with another word of thanks. I thank the four CEO’s that I had during my time at Chrysler and Daimler-Chrysler and Daimler, especially Dieter Zetsche, who was my last boss and friend. I’m grateful to everyone who supported this dinner. I thank my close friend, Kathy Elias, my executive assistant for 23 years, and congratulate her on her retirement.

I thank Steve Greer, our car coordinator, driver and my running buddy for the last 15 years. I thank my family, especially my Italian father and my Irish mother, my sister MaryAnn and other fountains of familial support. I thank my stepsons David and Patrick who have enriched my life more then they will ever know and who worked to keep me humble, and my wife Patty who has been my partner in every aspect of our lives. When we met at a Christmas party, at Chris and Kathy Matthews 10 days before I started at Chrysler, we began what has been this great partnership.

We’ve had some health scares over the last 18 months, Patty with breast cancer and me now with tonsil cancer. These challenges have strengthened our bond and reminded us how much we have yet to do together and how fortunate we are, especially for having found one another. I shall never forget this honor; I share it with Patty and with you and I thank you.

Thank you, John. As Nick said, he may be in touch with all of you and if he makes the other decision, he will certainly be in touch with me. John has been with us for two years and he could have said a lot of other things about us that he did not say and we appreciate that. When my mother was introduced to the Foreign Relations Committee after President Clinton had nominated her to be Ambassador to the Vatican, she asked John to present her to the Committee.

Well, right before the presentation, Senator Specter was presenting Tom Poglietta, who was a Congressman from Philadelphia who was being named Ambassador to Italy. He gave some glowing remarks about the Congressman and he finally concluded, he said that the best thing about the Congressman being an Ambassador to Italy is that he speaks fluent Italian. So John gets up and says wonderful things about mother, her accomplishments. He concludes and says, “And Lindy Boggs speaks fluent Catholic.”

So Rob, I am warning you, when you ask a Louisianan to introduce you, you are not quite sure what they are going to say — but thank you, John, very, very much. John and I are joined tonight by many of our colleagues from Patton Boggs. As John said, my partners, my associates, my staff and particular my personal assistants, administrative assistants, are really much more like family than firm in terms of Patton Boggs.

We really do have a relationship which is really, I think, a unique relationship in this town, at least as far as I am concerned. Of course, they have to treat me like family because I have been a grandfather all of this time. I would also like to thank my friend Nick Calio — Nick and I go back a long ways. I remember in the days when he was working with Dirk Van Dongen and trying to basically take care of the wholesalers and distributors of the world. He was at that time worried about forklift drivers. Now he’s an executive — a senior executive at CitiCorp — and I guess he’s now worried about the Bentley drivers. But Nick, thanks very much for all of your work in this dinner, hosting it and thank you very much for having me.

I would like to thank John Vogt and Linda Dooley who actually are responsible for the Foundation and making everything run — John for being the volunteer chairman and Linda for really doing all of the work. Everybody in this room realizes who has done all of the work, and that is Linda. It’s a very, very interesting tribute to Bryce Harlow. He would be very pleased with what this Foundation is doing — bringing the best and brightest young people into a realization of how important public advocacy and public policy are to the future of this country.

I think that what this Foundation is doing is absolutely terrific. What we are trying to do, Linda, is we are actually trying to emulate that a little bit the Patton Boggs Foundation. Last year we gave ten students — seven students at ten different law schools — no, that’s wrong, it’s ten students at seven different law schools — summer stipends for law students who were not going to work in law firms over the summer, but would devote their summer to working in a public policy area.

This summer we’re going to probably do more, so we are actually trying to encourage what you have been trying to do for a long time, and that is to encourage very bright students to get an appreciation for working in public policy. Our motive is somewhat different than yours in the sense that they are law school students and it serves with us as an improvement tool in terms of trying to encourage very bright law school students to participate in public policy.

We hope that they look at us as a place that they may want to practice that policy. I can’t go on with my little talk without talking about a fellow named Rob Portman. I’m a little worried about Rob because he is being introduced by another Louisianan. But Rob Portman was with us in his very early years as a very young lawyer — I think it was ’84 or ’85 or ’86, something of that nature. He got a very good flavor, I think, in that short time with us, of Washington public policy and advocacy.

He then went back home with a clearer desire to participate in public policy. If there is anyone in this room that the fellows of this program ought to aspire to, besides the legacy of Bryce Harlow, it’s Rob Portman. He represents integrity; he represents professionalism and he represents leadership. Those are the basic tenets that our friend Bryce Harlow would recommend to everybody who is in this business.

Now Bob Michael reminds me, when I was in high school, a teenager in high school, my sister Barbara was a year older would say — you know, we go to our friends’ houses and they have beautiful oriental rugs. They have magnificent paintings on the walls. When our friends come to our house, they see Sam Rayburn, Lyndon Johnson, Russell Long and every once in awhile, Chuck Allick or Bob Michael. And they also see at the same time Tommy Corcoran, and they also see Lloyd Cutler.

They also see many, many people that you know that have been very important to the public policy advocacy practice in Washington. So I learned at a very young age how important the relationship was between the persons that govern and the persons who advise those who govern. I would watch a Tommy the Cork brilliantly, articulately represent a special interest but always openly and honestly. I would watch a Clark Clifford to the same thing. I learned at a very early age that that’s how this town and this government has to function; has to work.

Bryce Harlow would be the first to say that all interests are special interests, whether you represent a corporation, its shareholders, its employees, its suppliers, you need a government bailout. Whether you represent trade unions or trade associations or whether you represent a group of native Hawaiians who need recognition to protect their cultural heritage. All interests are special in this town and they all need a voice and they all need representation. But what does that mean? That means that we have to do it well. It means that we have to do it openly with public scrutiny and that is basically where we’ve come.

When I first registered to lobby, and I hate to say it was in the late 1960s, I went down myself to the Clerk of the House and I was the 68th person in October of that year to become a registered lobbyist. Well, if you check the Internet today, there re 35,000 plus registered lobbyists. Since 2000, that number doubled from 17,000 to 35,000. At the same period of time, this short period of time, the fees we charge and the income we earned has gone up by more than 100 percent.

We are probably one of the success stories of the American economy — not quite the dot com and I hope not quite the bubble, even though we had a few ripples last year and the year before, but it’s been a phenomenal change that I’ve been watching since I was a young lobbyist. Now, there have been dramatic changes. First of all, you now have instant news, Internet, BlackBerries, cell phones and none of that existed in the old days. You now have most markup securities occurring in sunshine. None of that happened in the old days.

You now have campaign finance, which in the days of the ’60s, was basically done by a handful of people — it was wholesale fundraising. There was the oil industry or labor unions or what have you; they took care of particular candidates. All of a sudden that is now retail fundraising, which has changed the demographics of lobbying in this town.

So we’ve had terrific changes over a very short period of time, terrific growth over a very short period of time, and terrific scrutiny as a result over a very short period of time. So the young fellows in this room who are going to hopefully benefit enormously by the Bryce Harlow Fellowship and who, I think, will be what we need. And that is, as we grow and get bigger and have more scrutiny placed upon us, we need the best and the brightest of you to join our advocacy profession and to become the Bryce Harlow models. Thank you all very, very much.

Oh, my goodness. That’s just beautiful. Rob, thank you so much for your kind words. And the fact that Rob is present and presented this award to me is an honor in itself. You know, Rob Portman lives the Bryce Harlow tradition. His integrity, his honesty and his ability to work with both Republicans and Democrats has resulted in tremendous positive trade benefits for the United States. And while we’re all the beneficiaries of Rob in his current role, I predict, those of us who are here tonight, will see, hear and work with Rob in other prestigious roles in the years to come. Rob, count me in as one of your most devoted fans.

Senator Inouye, you are a great American, a gracious gentleman and a most effective lawmaker. And I am honored to be sharing this program with you this evening. Having just returned from 10 glorious days in Hawaii where I would like to move, I have to tell you that if I did, I promise you I will become a loyal voter on your behalf. Congratulations to you for such a distinguished career. The first thing I want to do is to introduce my favorite date and husband, Bill Hoover.

And I want to publicly thank Bill for being my number one advocate. Bill, thank you. I would also like to recognize our daughter Kim, our son-in-law Cary, and my very, very handsome grandson Ian. They are with us this evening. Our other children are all in the witness protection program. But it was a surprise to me tonight that my brother-in-law Steven Hoover and his wife Jane are with us this evening. Steve, I don’t know where you are but…

You will find it interesting to know that both daughters-in-law are named Jane. Let’s be honest here, the Hoover men like to keep it simple. To Linda Dooley, president of the Bryce Harlow Foundation, to the board members of the Foundation and to Vic who is our dinner chairman this evening, I thank you. Linda, you brought spirit, enthusiasm and purpose to this organization, and I commend you on its 25th Anniversary. To the Bryce Harlow fellowship recipients, I offer my heartfelt congratulations.

To my fellow colleagues who are here this evening, I am very, very appreciative of your presence. And while I’d like to recognize each of you, I’m trying to adhere to the speechmaking advice of Franklin Roosevelt who said, “Be sincere, be brief and be seated.” Also, I don’t want the price of your parking ticket tonight to exceed your mortgage payment. I want to begin by dedicating this prestigious award to the memory of Bryce Harlow who opened Procter & Gamble’s Washington office in 1961, and to the outstanding team of P&G’s Washington office so ably headed today by Carolyn Brehm. P&G, thank you. I salute each of you.

My remarks are twofold. First, I would like to share with you a couple stories about Bryce Harlow since so many of you never knew him or had the opportunity to meet him. And, secondly, I would like to address the current state of lobbying and offer some thoughts on what I believe is a very honorable profession. Ronald Reagan once said, “Politics is a lot like show business. You have to have a hell of an opening, you can coast for a while, and then you need a hell of a close.” So I’ll do my best. Bryce Harlow had a delicious sense of humor. Upon reflection, I think the only reason that he hired me was because I’m tall. While he was a giant in stature, as Rob mentioned, he stood 5’4.” And he often told me, with a gleam in his eye, that when he came to Washington he was 6’6″ but he shrank after years of being beaten down by Congress. When he turned 65, he told us that his back went out more than he did; when he sunk his teeth into a steak, they stayed; and his knees buckled but his belt wouldn’t.

Bryce served four U.S. Presidents. He got into his office and he’d be talking to either a past or current president. He knew everyone in town. So one day he came into my office and he asked me if I knew who Robert Redford was. He said, “I think he’s an actor.” Well, I had just seen The Way We Were and, like most women, fantasized meeting this man. Bryce said, “Redford’s going to star in a new movie, All the President’s Men. He’s called me and he wants to talk about my experiences in the White House and Richard Nixon.”

So he said, “Do me a favor. Would you get some research on this actor and, by the way, could you join us for the meeting?” Well, my life was getting a lot better. So I dutifully did the requested research, which frankly didn’t take very long. What took long was my getting ready to meet Robert Redford. I got up at about 6:00 a.m. and I started teasing my hair. And in those days big hair was in, so I piled it all on top of my head. Then I put on the tightest dress I could possibly find. Spandex hadn’t been invented then. I applied more makeup than Alice Cooper. And I finally slipped into a pair of three inch stiletto pumps. I was divine but I was about 6’6″ tall. [LAUGHTER] When Redford arrived, he was about as shocked to see me as I was him. [CLAPPING/LAUGHTER] He had on a beige leisure suit and wore puka beads. He was about 5’8″ tall and, believe me, I towered over him. It was embarrassing. What I remember most, however, was not the attire but the discussion between Bryce and Bob.

We were tight by then. Bryce told him Watergate essentially reaffirmed the old truth that eternal vigilance remains the price of liberty in this country. He talked about integrity saying, “In politics one’s word is one’s bond. Habitual truth telling and square dealing are of paramount importance. If you lose your integrity, you should leave town.” I never forgot those words and they set a framework for the remainder of my career. [CLAPPING] Bryce was a mentor to me, as he was to hundreds of other aspiring lobbyists.

He led by example and he managed his work by doing the right thing. This philosophy leads me to make some observation about our current state of lobbying. Advocacy, as some would prefer it to be called, is an honorable profession, worthy of talented people. I personally equate lobbying to education and believe both are fundamental rights in a free society. Bryce often said, “Those who are effective and principled advocates of the interests of their companies and of the business community as a whole help government arrive at better informed and, therefore, potentially better decisions.”

In essence, a good representative of good business contributes a great deal to good government. Every profession has had its share of embarrassments, and lobbying is no exception. This has been a particularly difficult year for us. When individuals compromise professional integrity and manipulate ethical standards, we are all affected. As Congress considers lobbying reforms, and this debate is far from over, our profession should proactively embrace principles that, one, promote transparency.

And, in my opinion, this should cover 527s and grassroots efforts. Two, provide clear and simple rules uniformly applicable to all participants in the process. Three, require timely reporting obligations to members of Congress and their staffs. Four, don’t restrict our constitutional right to communicate with government officials. To me, this reaffirms the importance of lobbying as education. And, five, ensure strict compliance of enforcement mechanisms for all involved.

I would also hope that Congress doesn’t restrict travel. As 96% of the world’s population lives out the United States, members need to see… …members need to see, hear and learn from these individuals as well. Now, more than ever, each of us in the business of advocacy must lead by example. Reforms that genuinely improve the system should be the mandate of organizations such as the Bryce Harlow Foundation and other groups who represent this profession.

As lobbyists, your personal involvement in this debate is crucial. After all, politics is the art of making civilization work. The Bryce Harlow Business Government Relations Award is something that I will cherish forever. As Kathryn Graham once said, “To love what you do and feel that it matters, how could anything be more fun?” Actually, I think getting this award is more fun. As a “has-been” who now views herself as a will-be (because I think I’m going to have many different careers), I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

My husband often jokes that women and elephants never forget. Tonight is an evening I will never forget. I’m humbled by this award and by your presence. Thank you and goodnight.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

You honor all of us here tonight with your presence at this important annual gathering and dinner. Your participation this evening is all the more meaningful to those of us assembled here, because of your historical association with the foundation and with the Bryce Harlow Award, itself, as its 1992 recipient.

Given the exacting demands on your time, I cannot say thank you enough for your being here tonight and for your friendship over so many years. I only wish Vicki, my wife of 37 years, could have been here as well, to enable me to thank her for helping make this opportunity possible. However, God had other plans for her. And, while I have missed her each and every day since she took her leave of us late last summer; I am blessed with a wonderful legacy-two terrific grandchildren, their uncle and a very special daughter. Thank you, Kristin, for your love, compassion, and your support.

I would also like to recognize my fellow award winner tonight, a longtime friend to so many of us, Congressman John Boehner. John, your door has always been open, your energy boundless and your creativity and willingness to expend yourself in a worthy cause deserving of the very highest of praise. Thank you for your good humor and for your leadership.

I stand before you humbled, and accept this recognition with two important conditions. First, that I am here as you- each and every one of you. No one among us arrives here as just one. We are but part of a larger mural — a continuum, if you will, of professionals working hard to do the right thing in this wonderful experiment in democracy we call the United States of America.

We improve and we get better because our colleagues and our competitors make us so. We are lifelong learners, refining yet further the intent of the Founding Fathers. For that first-ever handwritten letter, we were the inkwell; for that first automobile, we were the fuel; and for that first personal computer, we were the chip. In short, we in our profession enhance and enlarge the benefits of the work of others — something upon which we should all take justifiable pride.

My second acceptance condition is that each of you commits to invest as much time in those new to our profession, as was invested in you by others.

In our form of government, advocacy is a highly practiced and invaluable skill. We should never allow it to become static; for it will die and soon be replaced. By something better? I think not! New blood in our profession, properly nurtured and mentored, is what will keep us — over time — vital, relevant and irreplaceable. We have, each and every one of us, an obligation we cannot shirk.

To the Bryce Harlow Fellows and other young professionals among us this evening, I cannot imagine a calling more worthy of your interest and your commitment. If you work hard, hone your skills, befriend others and keep true to your word; you will experience the thrill of victory more times than you can even begin to count. And, yes, you will not be immune to the pain of defeat. But that is not all bad.

I am reminded of a famous quote by Theodore Roosevelt that captures well the opportunity before you in our business-government relations profession. And, I quote: “It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out where the strong man stumbled, not where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who tries and comes short again and gain; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who in the end, at best, knows the triumph of high achievement and at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place will never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

No one among us stands alone. We are an accumulation of one another.

Who you work with helps define who you will be. In my case, I am grateful beyond words to those many of you with whom I have had the honor of serving — from my association experience with the American Petroleum Institute, the American Plastics Council and the American Forest & Paper Association; to my professional involvement with ASAE and The Center for Association Leadership; to my volunteer service with the U.S. Chamber, NAM, NFIB, NAW and others; to my political work in fundraisers, conventions, campaigns and canvassing; to my charitable work with Rebuilding Together; and to my engagement with a range of firms involved in lobbying, public opinion research, advertising, public affairs, workforce issues and legal representation. I’ve borrowed from each and every one of you, and you have taught me much.

Look around, you young fellows and new entrants to the profession. You will not encounter a finer bunch of lifelong colleagues and friends. The better part of each day of your working life will be spent among colleagues. It matters greatly where you elect to spend your time. Choose wisely your career path.

In my case, I did so many years ago, and I have never looked back and never regretted for a moment that choice. I am a disciple and practitioner of advocacy. I go to work every day and interact with some of the finest people one will ever encounter. I am given the chance to make a difference — sometimes in something really big. I’ve learned to be patient and to curb frustration. I’ve learned that it is still critical to pay attention to the daily detail, but that it is the longer reach of time that ultimately defines who you are. I’ve learned that it is people who really make the difference. I’ve grown up to be a better person. And, I owe a lifetime of thanks to each and every one of you here tonight. Thank you and God bless you all.

Well, thank you very, very much, Bob. This is unexpected. Many times, if you’ve been in Senator Bennett’s office you’ll see this picture of the two of them. They look a lot like twins. I mean they are spitting images of one another, and I’ve always said to Bob, “Gee, Bob, I would love to have that picture.” Well, I never got it. Here we are tonight, and I’m glad I was able to finally merit it.

I am very humbled with Bob’s presentation. We have been very, very close friends. And I might also say how proud I am to be on this same podium that Senator Nickles and Cal Dooley and Senator Breaux are going to come up. And I saw Tom Korologos who received this award. And I just want to say that this all ties in. It’s only really appropriate that Bob would make this presentation, and I think you can tell from his remarks, why. But there is even a bigger reason. And that is, that the two of us, along with Bryce Harlow, fought many, many battles in the sixties. We were, as Bob said, very few Washington reps. We represented companies that were very affected by the consumer movement, and so we fought the excesses of that movement along with Ralph Nader. And probably the biggest thing we took on was to defeat Ralph’s idea of a Consumer Department, which would have been with Cabinet status. And there are two men in the audience who have come back. One of them is Clarence Brown of Ohio, a Republican, and Grand Purcell, a Democrat. Where are you? Please stand up.

Oh behalf of Bob and Bryce, who is not here but he’s up there looking down, we thank the two of you because we were much indebted. But I might say that it was a great working relationship, and I was very honored with the two. And there is more to tell about that because it was Bob Bennett who convinced Bryce Harlow that Watergate was serious and was not going to go away. And Bryce, in turn, had convinced Bob to go to the Department of Transportation to run their congressional affairs. And as Bob mentioned, I was smart enough to recommend him to the JC Penney Company.

I came here in 1959 for Sears Roebuck, that struggling little mail order house out of Chicago. And I was very blessed. Senator Gore, now, not the Senator you are thinking of, but the father. This sort of gives away how old I am when you know Bob’s father and I are very close. Senator Gore introduced an amendment, which completely destroyed the lump sum distribution of the capitol gains treatment that was being given on our lump sum distribution and our profit sharing. This meant so much. And I was able to find, and I will remember very well, a tire changer at Sears. And Miss Telly (and I can’t remember her last name), Miss Telly in yard goods and I brought it down for the hearing on this Gore Amendment, but also because each of them had over a million dollars in the fund. And so it was very easy to explode the grass roots of thousands of employees within a twenty-four period. We were flooded with mail here, and some people thought that our grass roots were magic. But it was just that Senator Gore, the elder, deceased, picked the wrong issue and picked certainly the wrong company. But then to add to it, Bryce called me, he said we got the same problem. I had never met Bryce. He had just left the White House. That’s how Bryce and I got acquainted. I’m telling you, that’s when I say I was also blessed again because Bryce was a confidant, he was a mentor, and he helped me walk my way through the early time here in Washington.

Now, I want to tell you a little bit about Bryce that you didn’t know. And if you don’t believe me, the first thing I’m going to tell you is he was a Democrat. Now most of you didn’t know that, but he saw the light, came over to the Republican Party, and said, “Juncture!” And I won’t get into that because I have too many friends out there, like Jim Moran and so forth and Steny Hoyer, to say any more than that, but Bryce did come over to the Republican Party. But why a Bryce Harlow Foundation, you know? It’s very easy. He served two presidents, President Eisenhower and President Nixon, on their staffs. In fact President Nixon made him a Counselor to the President and gave him cabinet status. He also was a close advisor to President Ford and to President Reagan. Bryce Harlow, believe this or not, also is the only Washington rep I know of that ever received the President’s Medal of Freedom. He also was Chief of Staff of the Armed Services Committee, under Carl Vincent. None of you probably remember Carl Vincent, but he was a powerful human being in the town when I came from. And he was powerful because we had just gotten over World War One and then we were starting into Korea and Armed Services was everything. And Bryce was the Chief of Staff, and in that mix, Bryce met many people, including General Eisenhower.

Bryce, one of his carnal attributes, and I’m going to speak a little more about it in a minute, was integrity. Bryce was from Oklahoma and he had come here, started in the basement of the Library of Congress, and worked his way up to chief of staff. But a member of the Truman Cabinet lied under oath on the witness stand up in the Congress, and that just so turned Bryce because of his compassion for integrity and honesty that he went back to Oklahoma, he ran the family business, and then, while he’s running the family business, he wrote a letter to President Truman. And President Truman was contemplating, or already had announced he was not going to run for another term, so Bryce wrote to him and he said, “There is only one man in the United States who has a global view of what this country should be.” And he said that there are too many of the other candidates, if not all of them, that are just nationalized. And he said, “That ought to be the next president.”

President Truman turned around, wrote to General Eisenhower, and General Eisenhower politely (he was at Columbia University) and said, “Thanks, but no thanks.” But on the Christmas of 1951, General Eisenhower wrote to President Truman and said, “I’ll do it.” Now the first person, or one of the first, he called, was Bryce Harlow. And he said, “Bryce, we need Congressional relations, we need Congressional relations with the White House taking the initiative. I want to form a White House Congressional Relations Office, and I need you.” Bryce was in Oklahoma, he packed his bags, brought his family here, and that’s how Bryce entered into the Eisenhower administration.

He was just a wonderful asset, not only in what he did to establish that office, but throughout the Eisenhower Administration. And he stayed until the end. Then of course was the election between Vice President Nixon and JFK, and JFK won. And I think for a day, Bryce thought, “What am I going to do next?”

And a phone call came through from the chairman, Neil McElroy, of Proctor and Gamble in Cincinnati, he said, “Bryce, I want you to come in to Cincinnati. We want to interview you.” And he said, “We want you. We don’t have a Washington office.” But after being in Washington, you may recall, Neil McElroy came down at Eisenhower’s request with Secretary of Defense, and that’s how he got to know Bryce Harlow. And he said, “Bryce, would you open a Washington office?” which Bryce did.

Now, what I’m trying to show you is that as we went through Bryce in his early days, because of his past record, he was able, like nobody else has ever been able to do, to bridge the business community to government and government to the business community. So that is why he’s the namesake of this foundation. There was just no one like him.

Let me tell you a little bit about Bryce himself. I told you about his integrity, but Bryce had an uncanny ability. When you had more than three people in a room, and you were trying to solve a problem, Bryce would always speak last. I don’t care whether there were three or twenty, Bryce would listen carefully to everybody, and he had this uncanny ability to take a little bit from each of the persons who spoke, capture one or more of their ideas, and some how wrap it up into a conclusion which became a position or a policy for those in the meeting. Now, Bryce had one advantage over all of us, which a lot of you didn’t know. He took shorthand, so he was able to capture every word that was said in that meeting. But at the same time, at the end of that meeting, he was able to put it all together and say, “Here’s what I’d recommend to do.” And everybody felt, “Well, gosh, they’ve got a piece of my idea in there, it sounds good to me.”

So that was Bryce Harlow. Now, Bryce had two great characteristics, in addition to his belief in integrity. And by the way, Bryce used to say, “You know, when you give your word, that is your bond.” I’m quoting Bryce now, “and if you break your word, it will destroy you.” And I, in my career here, have seen that happen on a number of occasions, where people gave their word, it was their bond, they didn’t keep it, and they were destroyed.

But this other characteristic or hallmark that Bryce had was his humility. He was a very humble man. And he had humor; great humor. I remember when it was announced by Proctor and Gamble that they were going to hire him, the press came in on Bryce because he had been in the White House, so he was well-known in the Washington press. They said, “What do you have to say about this?” And he said, “Well,” he said, “This is Proctor’s greatest gamble.” So, that gives you an idea of this man; who he was. And how he was able to do what he did.

Now I just want to say a couple more words if I may. As I look out into that audience, and as I turned around and looked at all my former associates from Sears Roebuck and from GMA, and now there is a table here of my partners from the law firm. And I just want to say to all of them, I am up here tonight because of you. You won’t know this song because none of you are old enough. But there was a song, and it had a refrain in it., “You made me what I am today, and I hope you are satisfied.” Well, I just want to say, you made me what I am today. It’s because of you I’m up here. And I want you to know that. Because I think of Bryce who used to always say, “You can accomplish so much, if you don’t care who gets the credit.” And that’s the way all of you were. We accomplished great feats that nobody thought we’d be able to. Not because of me, because of you. I’m up here to get the credit. I also want to thank my wife, Helen. She certainly made me what I am today. But also those great children that stood up. And I don’t know if you can see the grandchildren, but there are nine of them somewhere in this audience. But I’m also very, very indebted to them. They made much sacrifice, as Bob said. They did, they really did. And anybody in our business of government relations realizes the hours that you are away.

So I thank you all for being here tonight. Good luck, good health, and God bless you.

Well thank you, thank you very much, John, for your kind remarks. It is true that I screwed up the campaign in ’08. Just think; Senator McCain would not be here at this dinner tonight if it weren’t for me. But not for the reason you think. Because if it wasn’t for me being involved in his campaign he would be starting his second term as president and be too busy at the White House to be at the dinner tonight. I do appreciate the remarks and John, I want to particularly thank you for those dozens of earmarks you obtained for my clients over the years.

Don’t believe it when people tell you that John’s hard to lobby. In the last several years he’s only thrown two of my clients out of his office and only thrown me out once. So try him out, he’ll listen. Everyone knows this man’s history, his heroic military service to our country, his superlative public service in the House and the Senate, his role as the guardian of our national security. Judy and I can vouch for one other thing: you cannot have better friends than John and Cindy McCain. There are no more loyal, gracious, generous and fun friends to have than John and Cindy. And I’m sorry Cindy’s not here because she’s also 95% of that team. John, thank you very much, I’m very grateful. A few quick acknowledgements: I know the late, great Jack Valenti received this award a few years ago. Jack brought some of his friends from Hollywood to the dinner. So did I. Would my friends from Hollywood please stand. This is very surprising; Mitt Romney promised me that Clint Eastwood would be at this dinner tonight. It’s a pleasure to be here with Senator Mark Warner–a friend, my senior senator in Virginia. He’s the political champion of Virginia as well as one of the most qualified people in government, as you saw in the video, to understand and practice successful business-government relations to help grow our economy. That’s what we’re trying to do with our business-government relations. Congratulations to you, Senator, on the award.

Senator Jerry Moran, thank you for being here tonight in support of Senator Warner and thank you for your leadership at the NRSC. We greatly appreciate that. Juanita Dugan, foundation chairman and long-time friend, thank you for honoring me in your remarks. Juanita called me several months ago to tell me I was going to get this award. I was obviously very flattered but I said, “Juanita, there will be at least a hundred people in that room at that dinner that are as well-qualified as me to get the award.” She said, “Yeah, I know but we went on seniority.”

Matt Shay, thank you my friend and client for chairing this dinner and doing such a marvelous job in getting all these people here. Linda, your continued excellence in stewarding the Harlow Foundation as president–thank you very much. I’d like to acknowledge the support, the great support that the Harlow family has given to the foundation over the years. They’ve already been recognized, but I thank my friend and former partner, Larry Harlow and his son Bryce who is the next superstar in the Harlow family. Where I come from in North Carolina we say, “If you see a turtle on a stump, he didn’t get there by himself.” Well, anything I might have achieved is only as a part of two great teams. You’ve already heard about one of them, but I also must acknowledge the other 90% of the Black family team, Judy Black. Thank you, honey, for all the support you’ve given me.

I’m very pleased that my son, Wes, and his wife Susan are with us tonight. They’re here tonight celebrating their 8th wedding anniversary, by the way.  Thanks to my friends in the video, especially Chairman Jeb Hansarling for taking the time to do the video. The other team that has supported me for almost 30 years is the bipartisan group of great government relations professionals at Prime Policy Group and our predecessor firms. You can’t lead a team if you don’t have a fabulous team and a number of them are here tonight. Would the Prime Policy people stand for just a minute, please, and be recognized.

You saw standing there, Scott Pastrick, the CEO of Prime Policy, one of my closest friends, a great partner. Any success our firm has had is due to Scott’s efforts at least as much as mine. He’s a wonderful friend and partner even though he is a democrat. He’s a good democrat–a Clinton democrat. Actually a Mark Warner democrat is what Scott is. But thank you, my friend, for all these years of working with me and for helping to make our firm a success. Lastly, thanks to all the many, many clients that over the years have allowed us to give themselves without the clients, obviously, you can’t succeed in government relations. I’m grateful to them.

The Bryce Harlow Foundation honors the greatest man ever to practice our profession. Bryce Harlow proved that you don’t have to be an elected official to make a big difference in public policy or in the direction of the government. Bryce spent the majority of his time mentoring and advising others as anonymously as he could. It was said of him that in a room this size, full of people, almost every one of them had received advice from Bryce Harlow and none of them knew it about the others. Bryce’s lessons about how to lobby, how to assist public officials and how to live are known to many of us here tonight. But these lessons are particularly important to the Bryce-Harlow Fellows here in the room. I congratulate you and salute you on becoming Fellows and doing the hard work to learn the government-relations trade academically and from the wonderful mentors that you see around you tonight. If you follow Bryce’s principles, one of you will one night stand on this podium and receive this award.

Bryce Harlow listed six characteristics that a lobbyist must have to be effective: Integrity, willingness to work hard, adaptability to change, humility and perspective, and understanding of the processes of government and the ability to assimilate details. Let me dwell on one of these characteristics for a moment because I think it is the hardest one to achieve. Humility: Bryce Harlow said a Washington representative needs to recognize and accept the fact that whatever it is he represents is much more important to the political animals in town than his own personality and atmospherics. A good politician looks right behind the beseecher. He wants to know, and is busy calculating, as the representative makes his pitch, how the representative’s company and its employees might help or hurt him in his never-ending fight for political survival. In other words, it’s not about you. It’s about your company, your industry, your client, the thousands of employees and potential employees and consumers that you represent. Understate your role and lift up your client; lift up your business.

Now, humility, in all your professional dealings even more than Bryce highlighted, is treating everyone – members, staff, colleagues – with respect and kindness and listening with an open mind. As good a trait as humility is, the opposite trait can ruin you. C.S. Lewis, the great British author of the last century said, “There is one vice of which no one in the world is free, which everyone in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else, and of which hardly any people ever imagine that are guilty of themselves. There’s no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others. The vice I am talking about is pride or self-conceit. And the virtue opposite to it is called humility.” Lewis goes on to say that to avoid pride means don’t snub people, shove your oar in them, patronize them, or show off.

There’s no place in the world where pride trumps humility more often than here in Washington D.C. We all have pride and we all show off sometimes. But if we’re aware of the need to tone it down and to try to be humble, we can do better. We have role models like Bryce Harlow to follow. You know humility is not just a virtue; it will make you more effective in your career and in life. Congratulations, Bryce Harlow Fellows. Thanks to the board of the Bryce Harlow Foundation. Thank you for this great honor. Thank you, John McCain. God bless Bryce Harlow and this great foundation. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Fred Upton.  To receive that generous introduction from you means the world to me.  In a town characterized by harsh divisions, you are a consensus builder – and I know I speak for everyone here in saying we respect and salute you. Thank you to my colleagues in the Foundation.  That people I hold in such high regard have chosen me as worthy of their recognition is gratifying beyond words. I would also like to say congratulations to the Foundation’s fellows.  It gives me hope to see men and women of such talent entering this profession. And thank you, Linda Dooley.  I am sure you agree with me we all owe Linda a big sign of our thanks.  In addition, I would like to express gratitude to my family, friends, and colleagues without whose help, mentoring and support I could not have done anything in this life.  Finally, let me add my congratulations to Senator Lieberman for his award this evening.  Senator, I believe accounts of Congressional history will confirm your name among the Greats.  It fills me with humility to share this platform with you.

It is an honor and pleasure to accept this year’s award.  I have learned from the best, been taught by the finest, and follow in the footsteps of the enlightened and successful!  What an incredible experience! In the day-to-day hustle and bustle of life, we in our profession do not often have the time to reflect on the significance of our role here in Washington.  Let’s face it, we do not build things… we do not create new technologies… we do not unearth scientific discoveries. BUT… We clear the path for those who do to accomplish their jobs.

I was recently speaking with a group of visiting foreign executives.  They quizzed me on what it means to be a lobbyist. It is simple: we help preserve the freedom for first-class people and high-quality organizations to perform excellent works for all humanity. This is my message tonight:  professional advocacy — lobbying — done well is a worthy, admirable, and essential occupation.  Our gathering here affords us an opportunity to showcase advocacy as an irreplaceable contributor to the national welfare… to highlight the diverse and far-ranging information, skills, and talents required… and to celebrate what all of us accomplish.

Our nation’s Founders understood the essential role for articulate and knowledgeable people – not just elected officials — to step forward and present the needs of the people to their government.  That is why they protected this function in the First Amendment to the Constitution:

“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech…or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Lobbyists have been characterized in many ways:  Honest brokers… manipulators… visionaries… obstructers… leaders… liars… crisis managers… crisis exploiters. And many more terms – some of which reflect a profound misunderstanding of what we do and of what government in a free society means.  There is no way to succeed long-term in this profession without an unsullied reputation for honesty. There is no way to serve a client without bringing vision to the halls of government… often a vision for how to adjust contentious legislation so it commands a broad consensus and serves the greater good. Thomas Jefferson wrote: “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy as cause for withdrawing from a friend.”  We carry forward Jefferson’s spirit. This is a profession that requires leadership and crisis management skills every single day. Sometimes convincing our own colleagues and leaders of the best course forward is the most difficult challenge we face.  We have all been there.  We all know. This reality is not new.

The thoughts I share with you tonight were the life principles of the man for whom this foundation is named….Bryce Harlow.  Bryce Harlow taught that trust and respect are the foundation of our world. He insisted on remembering every minute of every professional day what it means to walk in the shoes of those we seek to persuade and assist. He set an example of reaching across the political aisle and to all parts of the ideological spectrum, creating out of whole cloth public policy advances and solutions that truly made a difference. He celebrated the hard work of building relationships and taking risks to construct workable coalitions… of providing answers and credible ideas and demonstrating the wisdom of finding a common path forward… not sinking into a swamp of hostility and division.

It is that role… the role he defined… the role he exemplified… the role for which he set the standard… that all of us in this profession are so proud to play. And in these contentious times, it is that role of consensus builder and peacemaker that is so often under attack. And because it is under attack, it is all the more essential for all of us to work even more conscientiously and thoughtfully to fulfill our mission and maintain our integrity and credibility.  When process breaks down, all parties, all players, all sectors of our national life suffer.

Like you, I must frequently remind my clients — Washington does not work like business works.  Often in this business, there is not a perfect translation or sound logic for actions taken to the outcomes that follow.  Devising the appropriate response from a company or an industry to the clarion call of the legislators and the regulators can be a daunting task.  We have to interpret Washington for our corporate leaders and colleagues, so there is no misunderstanding and misinterpretation.  Many of us work for organizations that struggle to understand Washington and what we do here — from engagement with elected and government officials to working with special interest groups to co-exist and build working alliances. The bottom line is, that as government has grown, advocacy and lobbying have necessarily played an increasingly crucial role in public policy development.

We labor to advance our company’s goals and our industry’s objectives as part of solving global problems …which requires good ideas, credible data and information to educate and be an honest broker. And with social media, blogs, and the 24/7 global market place always on the move, lobbying takes on an even more dynamic dimension than before.  And yet, while information matters, it is not a substitute for deliberation, dialogue and reality checks… for people talking with people in an atmosphere of respect and trust. We also all know that our profession requires more than a passing taste for combat. And when crisis overtakes us, we have to protect and defend our companies as warriors would.  Be fearless.  Be a samurai.  We have to have courage, get the facts and manage the crisis, overcoming interventions from the media, from our friends, our allies and opponents.  We have to exhibit clear vision and give levelheaded responses.  And keep moving forward against sometimes- incredible challenges, while maintaining our honesty, integrity, and credibility.

We… all of us in this room and this profession… have our own personal lists of challenges met and outcomes achieved.  And we all know that these results and accomplishments were not obtained in a vacuum.  Every one of them takes a team… an ethos… a dedication to the common purpose and greater good that brings us all together. I want to thank all of you here tonight who make this process work and work so well.

Let me share with you my vision for the future of our profession and of the political process we serve.  It is for:

• A world where we can work successfully across the political aisle.
• A world where government, the private sector, and special interests. compromise to create win-win legislative and regulatory outcomes.
• A world where civility and trust return.
• A world where lobbyists are appreciated!
• A world with a bright future and a golden path onward for our nation and our world.

Thank you for this honor.  I accept it, not for myself, but on behalf of everyone in our essential…and noble profession.