Ed Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a key adviser to George W. Bush, is the embodiment of the measured camouflage of top strategic operatives.

From 2000 to 2007, in partnership with Jack Quinn — a former chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore — Gillespie ran one of the most successful lobbying firms in Washington, Quinn-Gillespie. During that period, the firm’s revenues more than doubled, from $7.6 million to $18 million.

Gillespie left the firm in 2007, initially to become counselor to President Bush. From that moment on, Gillespie disappeared from the ranks of registered lobbyists. In 2009 he formed Ed Gillespie Strategies. The firm proudly declares:

“In 25 years in politics, government and business, Ed Gillespie has emerged as one of the premier communications strategists in America. He knows what it takes to effectively convey information and image in today’s cluttered and constantly churning media environment. “In two decades of public and private sector work, Ed Gillespie has successfully organized and managed coalitions focused on policies ranging from excise taxes to encryption reform to energy regulation. He has the management ability it takes to create the infrastructure, run the meetings, coordinate strong personalities, and circulate information and implement agreed upon strategy and tactics.”

None of these activities requires registration as a lobbyist or disclosure of fees.

In a question-and-answer session on Oct. 30 with students at the University of Chicago, Gillespie said about his firm: “What we do mostly is just public relations and strategic communications advice and guidance for a lot of different clients, trade associations and corporate America.”

Gillespie is by no means alone in his role as a strategic adviser not registered as a lobbyist. He and his colleagues are raking in large fees for performing similar services. Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, was paid $25,000 a month for consulting and related services by Freddie Mac; Tom Daschle, the former Senate Democratic majority leader, is a senior policy adviser at DLA Piper, “one of the largest business law firms in the world”; and Anita Dunn, former communications director in the Obama White House, is now a managing director at SKDKnickerbocker, where she helps “NGOs, trade associations, Fortune 500 companies, and non-profit organizations to craft effective communications strategies.”

Many formerly registered lobbyists have decided to deregister in order to avoid falling under the new reporting requirements in 2007’s Honest Leadership Act.

Both academics and policy experts say that these reforms, adopted in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal, drove much of the work of manipulating legislative and regulatory processes underground.

A study by Dan Auble, a senior researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics, “Lobbyists 2012: Out of the Game or Under the Radar?” contends that lobbyists are purposely changing their modus operandi:

“Much of the decline in lobbying activity is not a decline at all, but rather the side effect of lobbyists and lobbying firms taking advantage of a feature of the law that allows them to continue influencing policy from ‘behind the scenes.’ By working as policy advisors and in other ‘unlobbyist’ positions, former lobbyists can keep their current jobs but escape the consequences of being registered, leading people in and out of lobbying to suggest that those consequences act as a deterrent to transparency.”

Auble (see Figures 1 and 2) charts the decline in the number of Washington lobbyists from a 2007 high of 14,837 to 12,433 in 2012, and a drop in their disclosed compensation from a 2010 high of $3.55 billion to $3.31 billion in 2012.