‘Informal Advisers’ to Campaigns Re-emerge

Every four years, when a likely party nominee emerges, so do the informal advisers. Right now, Mitt Romney is swimming in them.

Charlie Black, a prototypical informal adviser and familiar Washington hybrid of campaign lifer, cable stalwart and super-lobbyist, is among those counseling Mr. Romney. Mr. Black, 64, is available for old-pro advice, back-channel information and whatever else the campaign happens to need. That is what informal advisers do.

What they must not do is any harm, and this can be tricky since they often embody the capital’s permanent lobbying and money class that many voters detest — and they are precisely the Beltway insiders that Mr. Romney, a self-fashioned outsider, says he disdains. Some of their past ties can be unsavory — Mr. Black’s lobbying clients, for instance, have included strongmen like Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire.

Front-running presidential campaigns and their informal advisers typically both benefit from their affiliation. Being publicly linked with Mr. Romney, the leading Republican presidential candidate, can impress clients — an important currency in Washington (informal advisers are almost never paid real currency by the campaigns, and usually don’t need the money anyway). In return, they can vouch for the candidate within the embattled-but-still-potent Republican establishment in Washington, providing a vital link to big-ticket donors, potential endorsers and policy eggheads.

“I have the best job I’ve had in any election,” said Mr. Black of his current role. An affable North Carolinian, he is a veteran of nine presidential campaigns dating back to Gerald Ford’s in 1976. “I have no responsibilities. I am not accountable for anything.”

Nice work if you can get it. And many, apparently, can.

Informal advisers often bloom in the spring, when the weather warms and the primary contests are winding down. The political calendar becomes safer for the likes of the congressman-turned-lobbyist Vin Weber, the senator-turned-lobbyist Jim Talent, the former governor and White House aide John Sununu, and all-purpose insiders like Mr. Black, Wayne Berman and Bay Buchanan — all of whom are advising the Romney campaign.

“I’m a big believer that campaigns are like a symphony orchestra,” said Ron Kaufman, a former Republican lobbyist and operative who is a regular presence at Mr. Romney’s side. “You have to add certain types of music at the right time. If you add it at the wrong time, it can destroy the whole piece. This is the right time.”

Mr. Kaufman is in an elevated club of unpaid adviser in that he has known Mr. Romney for years and travels frequently with him, just as he did when Mr. Romney ran in 2008. He is thus a step up from being an “informal adviser,” though that’s the title that the campaign seems to prefer. (Some others assisting Mr. Romney have souped-up titles like “special adviser,” “national finance co-chair” and so on.)

When Mr. Romney criticized his rival for the 2008 nomination, Senator John McCain, for his ties to lobbyists — including the ubiquitous Mr. Black — an Associated Press reporter confronted him about his own traveling buddy, Mr. Kaufman. Mr. Romney explained that he was just an informal adviser. “My campaign is not based on Washington lobbyists,” Mr. Romney said then. “I haven’t been in Washington. I don’t have lobbyists at my elbows that are arguing for one industry or another industry.”

Mr. Kaufman has since deregistered as a lobbyist. Mr. Black also sought to wipe the slate clean in 2008, announcing his “retirement” from lobbying after he joined the McCain campaign. His ”retirement” ended shortly after the McCain campaign did.

Today, Mr. Black is chairman of Prime Policy Group, a bipartisan lobbying firm — his clients include Walmart, Google and financial firms — and was the founder of its precursor, BKSH & Associates Worldwide. “After Obama won, I kiddingly told my Democratic partners, ‘Great, now I don’t have to go lobby the administration for four years,’ ” Mr. Black said. “I can play more golf.”

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

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