Daschle did not stop caring about hunger because he was working on dairy issues. And he did not start working on dairy issues merely because of campaign contributions. He genuinely cared about dairy issues, too. Money that people in the dairy industry spent on campaign contributions and lobbying did not have to buy Daschle's views -- he was in their corner to begin with. But what campaign contributions and the subsidization of legislative work that lobbyists provide do obtain is a subtle alteration in politicians' prioritiesThe article further backs this assertion by noting that the distribution of funds by groups favors politicians who already favor them, not politicians who are on the fence or on the other side.
The conclusions that derive from this are interesting: it means that you shouldn't care too much about who's funding politicians you don't like (except insofar as you can use that to make political hay), but you should be very alert to see which other groups are funding the ones you do like; they're the ones competing with you for actual slices of the politician's efforts.
