It's not silly at all. Yes, politics are messy, but there is a huge chasm between talking to lobbyists and taking their money. The former is, as you point out,

It's not silly at all. Yes, politics are messy, but there is a huge chasm between talking to lobbyists and taking their money. The former is, as you point out, necessary to the process. But the latter inherently undermines the process. As soon as you can legitimately ask whether or not a donation has affected policy, it becomes impossible to fully trust the system. And the more relevant the question becomes (i.e. the more money that has changed hands) the less trust you can have. Being a representative democracy, we're forced to trust our elected representatives to do what is in our best interest, which may be at odds with what the lobbyists want, because 99.98% of us don't have the money or influence to compete with the lobbying arm of an entire industry. For example, do you think there is a reason that politicians who take money from oil interests are strongly correlated with those who deny climate change?