Tom Donohue: Obama's Tormentor

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Waiters appeared with plates of mesclun salad and goat cheese soufflés, accompanied by a Napa Valley chardonnay. Then they returned with the main course: port-wine-and-orange-glazed duckling, paired with a California pinot noir. Donohue kept the conversation flowing as fast as the wine. He joked with a Viacom (VIA.B) lobbyist about the fact that she had only recently left a job on the staff of one of the House's most liberal leaders. "Congratulations for switching sides," he said. He teased a Disney lobbyist about his company's plan to build a theme park in China—warning that it would take forever and to be wary of competition from the country's state-supported businesses. "He's going to be retired by the time it's done," Donohue told the group. "I told him, 'Come and see me, and tell me how you like it. Of course, there's going to be one just like it across the street.' "

As the waiters circled with warm banana-and-macadamia pudding, the conversation took on a darker tone. Donohue announced that the chamber had been digging into the funding sources of anti-globalization groups that might try to thwart their efforts overseas. "We found that 50 or 60 percent of their money comes from the same person," Donohue said dramatically. He wasn't ready to name names just yet. Instead, he acted like a man with a hand grenade in his pocket who couldn't wait to hurl it. "It's going to be a story," the chamber leader promised. The people sitting around the table seemed baffled. (Later, when asked if he was referring to George Soros, Donohue laughed and said, "That's a pretty good guess.")

Then, at 8:30 p.m., Donohue glanced at an antique clock on the sideboard and declared that it's the chamber's policy never to keep guests longer than the scheduled time. He bid his lobbyist friends farewell and prepared to head home to Potomac, Md., where he lives with his wife, Liz. "That's my favorite clock," he said.

In Praise of Relentlessness

Donohue grew up in Brooklyn and still has the accent to prove it. He got his MBA from Adelphi University in 1965 and in 1976 became a vice-president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Eight years later, he was named president of the American Trucking Assn., a position he held until the chamber lured him back to be its chief executive officer in 1997. By all accounts, he reinvigorated the association. "Tom brought to the chamber an enthusiasm that it was lacking," says Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). "I think he turned the Chamber of Commerce into an incredibly effective organization."

One of the keys to Donohue's success was his zealous approach to fundraising and the way he used the money once he got it. John Castellani, the former president of the Business Roundtable, an association of the CEOs of the largest U.S. companies, remembers overhearing Donohue berating Phil Condit—who was Boeing's (BA) CEO at the time and the roundtable's chairman—for not giving the chamber more money. "Well, I'm the chairman of the Business Roundtable," Condit replied. Donohue wasn't put off. "Yeah, but if you would give the money to the chamber, we'd get these issues settled," he said, suggesting that there was no question which lobbying group he thought was more effective.

His members see Donohue's relentlessness as a primary virtue. "I think they admire his tenacity, his enthusiasm, and his working style," says Jim Owens, the ex-Caterpillar (CAT) CEO who retired this year. "In a job like that, you have to have an outgoing personality; otherwise, you just become part of the bureaucracy in Washington. I think there are a lot of people in the business community who are glad he hasn't become part of the bureaucracy."

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