Mr. Bovich said his members thought it might be a lobbying tool.

But in a telephone conference with reporters yesterday, Mr. Roberts seemed to indicate that the proposed network might also be a useful lobbying tool.

It is a lobbying tool for health movements to work on policy makers in countries and global institutions.

"The name of a great city is a tower of strength," said a report on municipal consolidation prepared as a lobbying tool for Manhattan in the mid-1890's.

It was the latest in a string of creative lobbying tools in the state's recent death penalty debate.

The study is partly a lobbying tool.

"Now we have a lobbying tool as opposed to just a fund-raising tool," Ms. Scher said.

The reason for their success is not just the information gathered, it is the way they use it as a political lobbying tool.

But the recent setbacks have deprived Star Wars supporters of a crucial lobbying tool that had previously proved quite potent: technical success stories.

"This does give music education advocates a lobbying tool, if they want to justify a music program," Dr. Hetland said.