Hollywood’s top lobbyist sits down with FLYP.

The Hay-Adams Hotel is a stately Washington, D.C. landmark, whose slightly raffish bar, Off the Record, is one of those institutions where politicos, journalists and lobbyists drop by to rub elbows with each other, and with history.

Across the street from the White House, its bohemian atmosphere is furthered by its location underground, and all of its red velour conjures of images of a Victorian brothel.

The aviator Charles Lindbergh, the novelist Sinclair Lewis and the pilot Amelia Earhart lived here when it was a posh apartment building, and Off the Record is a favored hangout of all kinds of power brokers. Oliver North entertained his Nicaraguan contra buddies here, and the American spy Johnathan Pollard reportedly used to change his clothes in the bathroom when trying to lose his FBI tail. Even real-world celebrities like Harrison Ford have been known to drop by.

But Dan Glickman, Hollywood’s man in Washington, chose to meet us at Off the Record for one simple reason: “It’s about 12 feet from my office,” he joked. Indeed, the Motion Picture Association of America’s Jack Valenti building, another iconic landmark in contemporary Washington’s power grid, shared the block with the Hay-Adams.

Listen to Glickman speak about Hollywood…gone internationalGlickman—Bill Clinton’s amiable agriculture secretary and a former Democratic congressman from Kansas who counts The Godfather, Part II and Animal House among his all-time favorite movies—took what is arguably the capital’s most coveted lobbying gig in 2004.

He has a tough act to follow: the silver-haired Valenti, once a trusted aide to Lyndon Johnson, presided with great panache over the MPAA—and some would say Washington, really—for 38 years.

In this town of policy geeks, the MPAA job is steeped in more glamour than most. A lot of envious people in town assume Glickman is essentially paid seven figures to hobnob with movie stars; an assumption the irrespressible Valenti did much to foster. The Association’s movie screenings are among the most sought-after tickets, where impressionable members of Congress and their staffers might get to talk to a movie star or big-time director. It’s hard for Big Pharma or telecom lobbyists to compete with that type of influence-peddling. Tonight, after nursing a $10 Bloody Mary with us, Glickman will be off to a glitzy screening.

Glickman’s real job is an increasingly complex one, overseeing the interests of his seven employers (the MPAA represents the biggest Hollywood studios) before state governments, the Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and the global trading arena. Valenti engineered Hollywood’s ratings system to stave off censorship; these days, fighting piracy of job number one for the Association.

How does a former agriculture secretary become Hollywood’s chief lobbyist? “Very carefully,” Glickman said with his trademark humor. “I used to say that I went from making the popcorn to selling it.”

Hollywood’s movie moguls figured that Glickman’s heartland roots would be helpful in reaching out to members of Congress not usually attuned to their concerns. His cabinet experience was surprisingly relevant—the agriculture and entertainment industries both sell more of their product outside the U.S. than domestically, and both face nettlesome issues in global trade negotiations.

A lot of Glickman’s time these days is taken up worrying about piracy overseas and gaining more access to protectionist foreign markets.

There is a place in Beijing jokingly referred to as “Dan’s Shop,” because it’s where the government has its ceremonial crackdowns whenever it wants to show that it is serious about cracking down on piracy. His son happens to be a movie producer, and Glickman was amused (OK, not really) to buy pirated copies of his son’s movies during a trip to China.

Glickman is worried about the current backlash in the U.S. against globalization. “This is life or death for us,” he said, given that Hollywood’s business model is predicated on serving a global marketplace. But anxieties about free trade aren’t new: “I ran for Congress ten times and lost the tenth time in 1994 because of my support for NAFTA.”

Hear Glickman discuss the battles between producers and distributors.Is he ashamed of being a lobbyist? Not at all. Glickman believes informed advocates for different interests play an important role in the system. He used to yearn to hear from smart lobbyists as a legislator in order to gain a better understanding of an issue.

Obviously, lobbyists are not objective, but they still have to be informed and honest to be effective. And the political process—like an adversarial court proceeding—is aided by the clash of substantive arguments made by competing interest groups.

“What’s troublesome, I admit, is unnecessary, is the relationship between lobbying and campaign financing,” Glickman said. He would like to see Congress address that “problem” more forcefully.

For Glickman, the key to success in Washington—as in life—is keeping your sense of humor. He recalled how in his second year in Clinton’s cabinet he was designated to be the one cabinet minister to stay away from that year’s State of the Union Address. “They always ask a junior member of the cabinet. Wouldn’t you want the secretary of defense or state—not the agriculture or commerce guy—to be the sole survivor if Washington got wiped off the map?”
Listen to Glickman describe what it’s like to be a lobbyist in D.C.Forced to leave Washington for the evening with all the trappings of presidential power, Glickman went up to visit his daughter in New York. “I flew in a Gulfstream III with the White House doc and the military guy with the nuclear codes handcuffed to his wrist,” he recalled, amused. “I was almost the president.”

He laughed at the memory of his five-car Secret Service escort.

Undisclosed-location cabinet member and daughter watched Clinton give his speech on television, and then went to a Japanese restaurant in the neighborhood. Once the Capitol Building was cleared back in Washington, the Secret Service informed Glickman the mission was terminated. He was on his own.

“We left the restaurant close to midnight, and of course we couldn’t find a cab. And that’s when it struck me: four hours ago I was the most powerful man on the planet, and now I can’t even get a cab.”

That’s life in a nutshell: “You have to take the bad with the good, because there will be plenty of bad along the way. Most of all, you can’t take yourself too seriously.”
Listen to Glickman describe what it’s like to follow in Jack Valenti’s footsteps.