Bush strategist calls Microsoft lobby "an error" 
By Reuters
Special to CNET News.com
April 11, 2000, 2:45 p.m. PT
URL: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-1679693.html 
update WASHINGTON--A company headed by former Christian Coalition chief
Ralph Reed said today it made "an error we regret" when it asked influential
Republicans to lobby presidential candidate George W. Bush on behalf of
Microsoft. 

Reed's firm, Century Strategies, was a consultant to both the Texas governor
and to Microsoft. It said that it will no longer ask people to write Bush on
behalf of the company. 

The New York Times reported today that Reed's firm had sought influential
people to contact Bush on behalf of Microsoft after a judge found that the
software giant had violated the nation's antitrust laws by using monopoly
power to harm competitors, consumers and other companies. 

"Century Strategies should not have encouraged any citizen to contact Gov.
Bush; we should have been more sensitive to possible misperceptions, and it
is an error that we regret," the firm said in a statement. 

Representatives for both companies said Century Strategies had worked for
Microsoft since the fall of 1998. The software giant noted that Reed's firm
was one of several lobbying companies it had hired. 

"Our competitors have been lobbying for three to four years against
Microsoft and in favor of government intervention, and we cannot just sit on
the sidelines in the face of such an aggressive lobbying campaign," said
Mark Murray, a Microsoft spokesman. 

The Times reported the story after obtaining an email that Reed's firm sent
to influential Bush supporters. That email asked them to write Bush in
support of Microsoft and in opposition to the government's antitrust case. 

The newspaper said that John Pudner, a senior project manager for Century
Strategies, worked to undermine the government's suit, and that he screened
supporters to make certain they were influential in the Bush campaign. 

"We will reject letters that are not from someone influential," the
newspaper quoted Pudner as saying. 

District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who is hearing the antitrust case,
has set May 24 to consider what remedies should be applied against
Microsoft. The company has said it will appeal Jackson's decision after the
case finishes. 

In its statement released today, Century Strategies said: "In an abundance
of caution and to avoid any further misconception, this company has adopted
a policy that we will no longer encourage citizens to make their views known
to Gov. Bush on behalf of Microsoft or any of our other clients in the
future." 

Last week, the Justice Department's top antitrust enforcer, Joel Klein,
condemned the injection of politics into the enforcement of antitrust law. 

"If Americans are to have confidence in our legal system, the laws must
apply to everyone, and politics can have no place in the enforcement of
antitrust laws," he told the American Bar Association. 

Story Copyright © 2000 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. 


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