Comment by andrewla
2 hours ago
> why should politician listen to them if lobbyists are not promising them support in next elections in the form of marketing, payments for expenses and so on
Mostly because those things are directly illegal. Lobbying organizations (and PACs and SuperPACs etc.) are very limited in what they can provide either as direct monetary contributions or in-kind gifts to a candidate. The restrictions here are basically the same as those on an individual, but usually with more strict reporting requirements and lower limits.
The marketing aspect is the only thing that they can legally provide, and that's less a lobbying function than a PAC function, and they are not allowed to coordinate with the campaign or the candidate on this.
Well a funding a PAC that supports a specific candidate/party who gets elected because of that effectively accomplishes the same thing. Of course the salary the company "buys" for them isn't exactly in the same magnitude as a direct bribe could potentially be (on the upper end at least).
> Mostly because those things are directly illegal
Ah yes, said politician will just host a $100,000 a head luncheon so nobody is “bribing” them. That would be dirty.