Apparently it's all about the personal connection. Whether you are talking about being a source for a congressman or a reporter, your reliability and status as an "honest broker" define your usefulness. Lobbyists are useful because they can give a fast, accurate assessment of industry/interest group positions, and it's their job to be available and stay in constant contact with lawmakers and their staff. They know their interest group better than any hill staffer or congressperson ever will, and if they keep on giving accurate information, they will continue to be contacted. Same thing for a think tank, industry, science or environmental lobby. That's a big part of why they are so successful. Regardless of your position about a lobby, the lobbyist can still be useful.
But personal connections also come into play in how bills are introduced, and whether they pass. There are rules in the house and senate, and their are unspoken rules of courtesy. Someone in the minority party asks you to hold a bill until they can be present to vote on it, it gets held until they can. All things being equal, if you don't have a stake in a bill's fate, you vote goes with...., well, you get it.
One thing that surprised me was that most of our speakers addressed the increasingly acrimonious polarization between parties. I thought Washingtonians would be cynically hardened to conflict, but there was a common, genuine concern, and most feel that it is increasingly difficult to get anything done in the legislature. The only person who wasn't dramatically concerned about the state of constant political campaigning and increased polarization of politics in DC was the historian who described actual duels between members of the early legislature. Things aren't as polarized like the early days when people actually shot each other.
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