THE THURSDAY REGULARS

By JEFFREY H. BIRNBAUM WASHINGTON

AT 11 A.M. LAST THURSDAY, CONGRESSMAN John Boehner took his seat at the head of a conference-room table a few steps from the Rotunda, beneath the Capitol dome. As the fourth-ranking Republican in the House and a field general in the war to pass the "Contract with America," Boehner (pronounced Bay-ner) looked at home. But his lieutenants, who were arrayed around the table strewn with coffee cups and cigarette butts, were not so natural a fit. They were not fellow lawmakers or even congressional staff members. They were lobbyists representing some of the richest special interests in the country. Still, he treated them with the business-as-usual deference of a colleague. "O.K., let's get going," he began with relaxed familiarity, and then listened to their reports from the legislative front.

Welcome to the underside of the Republican revolution. To an extent unusual even for parasitic Washington, the House G.O.P. leadership has attached its fortunes to private lobbyists, and is relying on their far-flung influence to pass its agenda. Boehner's Thursday Group is the top of the pyramid of that sophisticated effort, serving as command central for a series of multimillion-dollar campaigns on behalf of the Contract with America. The stakes of the enterprise-and the potential rewards for the lobbyists-are huge. "If we don't do the contract, we don't have to worry about doing other kinds of bills," Boehner says ominously. As for the lobbyists on his "team," he adds, "We know who's doing the work." And that clearly will make a difference.

The work in this case is being done by an eclectic group of interests that represent, in effect, the new Republican alite. They are a seemingly combustible mixture of traditional business groups-heavily weighted toward small businesses-and decidedly populist organizations. Although the two sides disagree about many things, they share an antipathy toward government and a belief that Republicans should remain in power. And so far that has been enough to keep them together. The business groups around Boehner's table are the National Federation of Independent Business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Home Builders, the National Restaurant Association and the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors. They are joined by such "movement"--or ideological--conservatives as the Christian Coalition, the Citizens for a Sound Economy and the Americans for Tax Reform. "We're learning to love each other," says John Motley of the N.F.I.B., the chief small-business lobby.

Not all Republicans think the alliance is a good idea. Some are worried that in its zeal to pass the contract, the leadership might be snuggling too close to the special interests that the all-important swing voters abhor. If the contract's tax cuts overtly favor corporations and the wealthy, says G.O.P. Representative Steve Schiff of New Mexico, "it will make us a sitting duck for those who argue that our party has capitulated to our [lobbying] allies." Democrats are already making the argument. "The Republicans are too close to business interests," charges Charles Schumer of New York. "That is their Achilles' heel."

Boehner shows no sign of backing down. To the contrary, his Thursday Group is busy forming new coalitions and keeping its old ones intact. And that is no small feat. A Thursday Group lobbyist has been chosen to head the lobbying effort for each of the main provisions in the contract, ranging from tort reform to tax relief. In turn, the chairperson puts together an elaborate coalition of other lobbying groups. The biggest so far is the tax-relief coalition, led by Motley, which has more than 100 members and six task forces to handle policy, communications, vote counting, grass-roots lobbying, fund raising and recruitment of additional members. Its meeting last Thursday-convened four hours after the Boehner confab-was held in a G.O.P.-provided room in the West Front of the Capitol and featured an exhortation by Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Republicans say their model comprises the Democrats who regularly conspired with organized labor, environmentalists and other allies to get their legislation passed when they controlled the House for 40 years. But the Democrats were never so organized. The Thursday Group's tort-reform effort, for example, featured daily meetings of dozens of lobbyists on the seventh floor of the Longworth House Office Building, a budget of several million dollars raised under the guidance of a General Motors executive, and a vote-counting operation that was led by former top lobbyists for Ronald Reagan (Alan Kranowitz) and George Bush (Nick Calio), who now work as lobbyists in the private sector. Says Robert Bannister of the home-builders association: "This is more focused, more sustained and more businesslike" than similar efforts in the past.

It has also been more effective. Thanks in large measure to the Thursday Group, the G.O.P. is close to getting its 10-point contract through the House in the first hundred days of the session. A reason: the lobbyists have left nothing to chance. During consideration of each measure, they bought television, radio and newspaper ads, faxed "action alerts" to their members to stir up calls and letters and, for the tax bill, have even arranged a bulletin board on the Internet. At one point recently the barrage was so intense that Frank Coleman of the Chamber of Commerce was besieged by congressional staff members who begged him to remove their bosses from the lobbyists' target list.

But rougher days are ahead. The contract will be harder to pass in the Senate, where most of its provisions face Democratic filibusters. That strain could tear the lobbyists apart. The fealty of the Christian Coalition will be sorely tested, for example, if the Senate, as expected, pares the group's most cherished proposal: a new $500-a-child tax credit. The Home Builders would also revolt if Senator Bob Packwood, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, makes good on his threat to place new limits on the mortgage-interest deduction to pay for any cut in the tax on capital gains. To guard against those hazards, G.O.P. Senator Paul Coverdell, the Senate's lobbymeister, often attends the Boehner meeting, as he did last week.

Sometimes the lobbyists get greedy and try to press for their own narrow benefits in violation of the Thursday Group's most important requirement: that each member back the entire contract without reservation, regardless of his or her own interests. "Every once in a while somebody will get a little selfish," Boehner admits, "and you just have to say, 'We have rules here.' "

For the most part, though, the lobbyists are playing the good soldier and reveling in the experience of being at the right hand of power for a change. "The difference this year is that we're playing offense rather than defense," says Bruce Josten of the Chamber of Commerce. "It's very tiring but very exciting for all of us." It could also be very profitable. Says Bannister of the Home Builders: "If you're not involved in the first hundred days, don't try to get involved in the next hundred days."