I’m confused. If Fairshake’s $100 million was this influential, to the point that “politicians are advised that crypto is the single most important industry to avoid pissing off”, why don’t other industries spend similar amounts on super PACs? $100 million is just not that much money.
It has long been a mystery to me why there isn’t more money in politics, but I always thought that the usual argument was that studies show that campaign spending matters surprisingly little, and in particular, super PAC dollars are very not effective at getting votes.
A lot of this I suspect is related to way too many lobbyists targeting high-salience issues where the public is willing to vote against or for certain candidates, and I suspect a lot of the studies showing lobbying has no effect are on issues where the public is willing to vote against legislators that take the stances lobbyists prefer.
My general model for lobbying is that it’s most useful in areas where you have reason to believe the public doesn’t care about the issue, because you can provide money and selectively boost or depress candidates based on the more normal issues without talking about the issue, and it becomes much less useful when the public starts to care about an issue.
In essence, lobbying provides information, promises and threats on money as well as shifting the framing of issues in a legislator’s mind.
A lot of this I suspect is related to way too many lobbyists targeting high-salience issues where the public is willing to vote against or for certain candidates, and I suspect a lot of the studies showing lobbying has no effect are on issues where the public is willing to vote against legislators that take the stances lobbyists prefer.
My general model for lobbying is that it’s most useful in areas where you have reason to believe the public doesn’t care about the issue, because you can provide money and selectively boost or depress candidates based on the more normal issues without talking about the issue, and it becomes much less useful when the public starts to care about an issue.
In essence, lobbying provides information, promises and threats on money as well as shifting the framing of issues in a legislator’s mind.