WASHINGTON: "Okay, you've convinced me. Now go out there and bring pressure on me," U.S President Franklin Roosevelt is said to have advised a business delegation that called on him with some demands.

Whether the current U.S President proffered similar advice to Benazir Bhutto is not known, but in an unusual move, the exiled Pakistani prime minister has hired a top lobbying firm in Washington for six months at a cost of $ 250,000, to nudge the Bush administration into backing free elections in Pakistan.

The scuttlebutt on Capitol Hill and on K Street, where many of Washington's lobbying powerhouses are located, is that Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party has signed a $28,500-a-month contract, good through the end of June 2007, with an affiliate of the well-known PR group Burston-Marsteller.

The affiliate, BKSH and associates, is headed by Charlie Black, a top Republican strategist and former advisor to Presidents Reagan and Bush I and II.

According to a filing with the Justice Department, BKSH will work to promote the PPP's views on Pakistan's current political situation to members of the Bush administration; the US Congress; think tanks such as the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute; "business elites" and members of the media in Washington, New York, the UK, and Brussels; and Pakistan expatriates living in the US.

Bhutto has been kept at an arm's length by the Bush administration, especially after Pakistan's military ruler agreed to do US bidding in the aftermath of 9/11. Typically, Washington finds it more expeditious to work with military juntas and dictatorships in small unstable countries, rather than negotiate the taxing and consensual democratic processes.

But faced with constant ridicule in the American media and strategic circles for backing a dodgy military junta in Pakistan, Washington has lately opened up to Benazir, trying to devise a plan B to Musharraf, according to Pakistani circles.

The U.S is said to be trying to bring about a rapprochement between Musharraf and Benazir, which is why her participation in the current anti-military government imbroglio has been muted.

In the meantime though, Bhutto's PPP is adding to the coffers to Burston-Marsteller and BKSH and associates, whose clients range from the governments of Taiwan and Haiti to companies such as General Electric, but seldom opposition parties.

According to The Hill , a journal that monitors political and lobbying activity in Congress, BKSH and its affiliates first plan to survey elite opinion of Pakistan in the West. Campaign materials will be developed and op-eds and white papers circulated.

With its foundation built, a "broad public affairs campaign" will be initiated, contacting administration officials and members of Congress. The PPPP will turn to "third-party supporters," such as former U.S. government officials and think tanks, and Bhutto may host dinner parties for select individuals.

And finally, the campaign will focus on the press by scheduling editorial board meetings for Bhutto with The New York Times and The Washington Post and "targeting top journalists" like Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria and NYT's Tom Friedman.

Bhutto wrote a Washington Post Op-ed only last week promoting her democracy agenda and questioning the Bush administration' s backing of a military junta that promoted terrorism.

Bhutto's use of a Washington's lobbing practice is hardly surprising given Pakistan's record in this matter. While tightfisted New Delhi counts every dollar it spends in lobbying, Islamabad's profligacy in this matter is legendary.

At one time, Pakistan had as many as eight separate lobbying contracts in the U.S - including one outfit solely to generate op-eds and letters to editors "“ spending millions of dollars a year to counter its negative image and keep alive issues like Kashmir.