When The New York Times revealed in April that Microsoft had hired Ralph Reed, the onetime executive director of the Christian Coalition, to lobby George W. Bush on the company's behalf, the story that generated all the attention was Reed's obvious, if bizarre, conflict of interest--he was also a paid adviser to Bush's presidential campaign. But the underlying story, largely overlooked at the time, was something bigger: the increasingly Republican tilt of Microsoft's presence in Washington, D.C.
