The business of influence in Washington

By Michael Tackett Tribune senior correspondent

Say this for him, Charles Jarvis doesn't think small.

Jarvis is chairman of the United Seniors Association, an organization he markets as the small but scrappy conservative alternative to the venerable AARP. Brash and blunt, Jarvis has taken on a high profile in the capital this year--on television, in print and on the Internet--as he savages AARP for its opposition to President Bush's plan for private accounts within Social Security.

But the story of his fight with the nation's best-known seniors group is hardly one of David versus Goliath. The group is also known as USA Next and is funded primarily with millions of dollars from pharmaceutical and energy companies, among others.