(FORTUNE Small Business) – According to a recent Gallup poll, a large majority of Americans believe rich folks and corporations pay too little in taxes (68% and 69%, respectively); a slim majority (51%) also think the poor pay too much. Other polls show that as many as 80% favor an increase in the minimum wage. Those are mainstream points of view. If you share them, you probably believe that what is good for the average working consumer is also good for your small business. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), however, believes otherwise: that what is good for small business is good for America. Name a legislative initiative that could be seen as promoting the common good--universal health care, a higher minimum wage, expansion of the Family Medical leave Act, preservation of the estate tax (excuse me, death tax)--and the NFIB is against it. In fact, the NFIB probably brags about killing it.

"[Our members] would say the best thing for the common good is for America to grow and prosper--that it's better to help me hire somebody than to keep paying somebody welfare," says Jack Faris, 63, the NFIB's long-serving CEO, who will retire next spring. We're having lunch (with a half-bottle of 2002 Cristom Reserve pinot noir) at Tosca in Washington, D.C., where Faris rates a corner table. He has blue eyes, pink skin, and white hair. At 6-foot-1, he cuts an imposing figure even when sitting down. "NFIB members don't get upset about people becoming wealthy, and that's the reason they're upset with the death tax," Faris continues. "If we had a $10 million exclusion on the death tax, 98% of our members would not be touched. But you know what? They don't want it. Because one day they hope to be that wealthy."

There you have a key to understanding NFIB's clout: We're not all rich ... but we all believe we could be one day. And an awful lot of us--more than 21 million Americans will file a schedule C with their tax returns this year, according to the IRS--see small business as the path to those hoped-for riches. Which is why Faris gets frequent calls from the White House, asking him to supply an authentic small-business person willing to appear on stage with the President. Joel Marks, founder of the much smaller American Small Business Alliance, dismisses the NFIB as "little more than a tool for big corporations and the right wing of the Republican Party." If Marks is correct, then rarely has there been a Washington lobby more adept at framing a special-interest agenda in ways that appeal to a huge chunk of the electorate, and then translating that consensus into political power.

Among the big wins under Faris's watch: blocking the Clinton health-care plan in 1993 ("We got three members to change their votes in committee"), ousting the Democratic majority from the House in 1994 ("I do know what we did in certain districts, because I've got the numbers"), repealing the estate tax (if not yet permanently), and last fall replacing South Dakota Democrat (and former Senate minority leader) Tom Daschle with Republican John Thune. "We moved out a major obstacle to small business in the Senate and we put in a champion," says Faris. "We didn't just move the needle a little bit. We moved it from here" (indicating the bread-plate side of his table setting) "to here" (indicating the wineglass side).

In his final months at the NFIB, Faris has his eyes on an even bigger prize. "If a Supreme Court nominee comes up while I'm still CEO," he says, "there's a really good chance we might get involved in communicating with our members about the pros and cons of that person, which we used to never do." And what is the NFIB looking for in a Supreme Court justice? "A strict constructionist who lets the legislature legislate," says Faris. "We want a person with a history in the legal community of fairness." Fairness. Who could argue with that?