Mickie Glantz has an interesting post up on his FragileEcologies Blog in which he muses about whether or not politicians can be bought.  I gained some insight into this question during my orientation for my current fellowship, as we were addressed by a number of former officeholders.  One of them argued that politicians aren’t generally bought by campaign donations or bribes, though this sort of thing happens.  Instead, the process is much more mundane.  Donations buy access to the politician.  The politician then sees you around, says hi to you, starts to recognize your face, and after enough of these sorts of events, might even feel like s/he knows you.  At which point you have the ability to talk to them about your pet issue, and argue for it . . . and if the politician doesn’t have a strong stand one way or the other, s/he just might think that you are a good person, and you care a lot about the issue, so why not go with your point of view?  This, so the argument went, is how donations really come to affect lawmaking, votes, etc.
Now, finding an issue that the politician has no feelings about is hard – people follow voting records, etc..  And politicians generally have their survival in mind when they vote.  So there are limits to this means of influencing politicians.  But if this is how it is done, it is much more subtle and complex than the simple story of bribery, etc. that we seem to fall into when we discuss such things.  Thus, how policy is made is also much more complex than a simple story of big money shaping votes directly.  In the end, the story does run out in the same manner, because the people who can afford to attend a bunch of fundraisers in which they can shake their congressman’s/senator’s hand are by and large wealthy, and so that wealth is buying access and possibly influence.  At the same time, it suggests that working on campaigns for elected officials might provide similar access without the need for so much money – so perhaps activists might consider that route?