Imagine the following: A Koch brother tells the media that he's going to spend more than $32,000—or, roughly one-and-a-half times the poverty line for a family of four—in order to lobby Barack Obama face-to-face for two minutes in order to push for regulations that would massively increase the cost of living for average Americans so that the Koch brother could increase his market share and damage the economic prospects of his competitors.

How do you think the media would cover that story? I imagine it wouldn't look much like the coverage given to Paul Scott in USA Today. Reports Chris Woodyard:

Paul Scott, 60, says he isn't a rich guy. He's a $50,000-a-year Nissan salesman who plans to rub elbows with 24 bigwigs in a private luncheon that he says will put a crimp in his retirement plans. But he says the goal is worthwhile. He wants to make a few points to Obama about on how to better support electric cars — a cause that Obama already embraces — and thought the private audience would be a fine way to do it.

So cute! The little guy, just trying to get a word in edgewise with the hotshots and the millionaires and the bigwigs. And what does he want for his massive donation to the president? Oh, nothing much:

He wants to tell Obama that as an electric car expert he believes the administration needs to push for a so-called "carbon tax" that would raise prices on oil-based fuels, making electric car prices more competitive. He wants to ask Obama to increase his efforts to convince Congress to make electric-car rebates at the point of sale, not months later as part of a $7,500 tax incentive. He says he wants it even if Obama were to back down on increasing the incentive to $10,000. And he says he wants to tell Obama to be more vigorous in standing up to opponents of electric cars and to support groups like Plug In America. "I can sell more cars," says Scott, who specializes in electric vehicles, or EVs. "I am getting hammered in the press with all the anti-EV stuff."

Oh, well, that's actually not "nothing much" at all. That's a radical realignment of our nation's economic priorities and a series of policy choices that would massively harm the standard of living for virtually every single American. But hey: Paul Scott will sell more cars!

I'm not even mad. I'm impressed. Frankly, the $32k donation isn't worth it if he wants to change Barack Obama's mind: Scott's paymasters and the wealthy backers of electric vehicles have already poured more lucre into the Obama war chest than our modern day Willy Loman could earn in ten lifetimes. But this kind of unquestioning—almost adoring, really—media coverage in one of the nation's five largest newspapers? That's worth way more than $32,000.

Someone at Nissan should give this guy a raise.