hunter bates

Even long-ago aides like Law, who hasn’t worked for McConnell in more than 20years, has remained part of the extended political team. He helped set up and served on a pro-McConnell super PAC that was key to hitting McConnell’s primary tea party challenger and trying to define Grimes. “Even when they aren’t talking, they are thinking the same way,” one lobbyist said of the relationship between McConnell and Law. Law ran McConnell’s first reelection campaign in 1990 and later served for six years as his chief of staff. He’s now the CEO of American Crossroads, a super PAC backed by Karl Rove.Three former chiefs of staff who now lobby — Kyle Simmons of the Simmons Russell Group, Billy Piper, whose clients include theAmerican Television Alliance and Metlife Group, and Hunter Bates, a lobbyist who splits time between Washington and Kentucky — were on a weekly call helping with campaign strategy.Piper, who worked for McConnell for nearly 20 years, went so far as to take a three-week leave of absence from his K Street job at boutique GOP lobbying firm Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock to help out on the campaign.