In response to my post on American politicians actually being pretty cheap to bribe compared to how much money the acts they past give those who pay them, DavidN asked:
Since politicians can be bought so cheaply, why is it only the big corporations that play the game? Why don’t progressive groups, say, tell America that, if every American were to chip in $1, they could have more bargaining power than all of the big corporations? ($300 million > $283 million)
I know the big unions do it too, but why not more? Why are all the progressive fundraising outlets seemingly focused on giving money to politicians’ election campaings with few, if any, strings attached?
Then, in a double whammy, Lord Mike said:
Act Blue DESPERATELY need s lobbying arm especially since so many of our candidates are turning their backs on us!
Y’know, both of these things are true. Progressives need an effective lobbying arm, and to the best of my knowledge, other than perhaps MoveOn and unions (by which I mostly mean SEIU), we don’t have one. And while I love my union friends, they have their own priorities, which while they often match up with progressives, don’t always. As for MoveOn, well, let’s say that they can’t do everything. The whip effort from FDL, Kos and others on healthcare which is going on now is doing yeoman work, but I’m sure they’ll agree that more money and full time lobbyists would make a huge difference.
So I’m genuinely throwing this out there. I don’t know why we don’t have really effective fund-raising which is sufficient to do effective lobbying.
Why?