Nearly all full-service trade associations have a government affairs department and employ at least one person to represent the association’s constituency before federal and/or state governments.  Moreover, while the title of “lobbyist” for most (if not all) people who plow this particular field is unofficial—“director of government affairs” goes on my 1040—many people would conjure up an image of how that term was supposedly coined if asked to give a job description for my colleagues and me.
 
The story goes that President Ulysses Grant enjoyed hanging out at Washington’s Willard Hotel, while he savored a cigar and ...