This is because most lobbyists can only offer campaign donations, and then only implicitly. That isn't what politicians really want; They want votes. If they ha

This is because most lobbyists can only offer campaign donations, and then only implicitly. That isn't what politicians really want; They want votes. If they have campaign money, they might be able to use advertising and organizing to turn that into votes, but it is no sure thing. A few lobbying groups, like AARP and the NRA actually can bring votes to a candidate and that is where the real power is. They have a list of people who care about their pet issue and can send them mail saying "candidate X proposed HR.1337 which does foo; Candidate X fights for your rights." Until recently, the only organization with a large list of people who were frustrated with turbotax was Intuit. However, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit now both have records of large numbers of people griping about taxes. Why has Facebook not yet exposed an API that let you advertise to people who are frustrated with a given concept? It seems like a great way to find folks that have a certain pain point.