How the Alcohol Lobby Works

If you want to get really angry, read this story.  If you only want to get irritated, read this excerpt:

Elected officials could drive up to Tigani warehouses for free cases of beer and liquor. Tigani supplied free beer for their campaign events. He invited them to NASCAR races and parties that featured free food and liquor, and sometimes women dressed in skimpy outfits. He sent legislators gifts of wine and fruit baskets. He chartered big buses and took them to Jimmy Buffett concerts. Smaller buses were ordered up for trips to Philadelphia Eagles games. He flew the governor on a private jet.

Tigani helped them politically, too, at times directing his employees to work on campaigns while being paid by his family's company, N.K.S. Distributors Inc. of New Castle.

Tigani also poured money into political campaigns. One of the biggest individual contributors to state campaigns from 2004 through last year, Tigani, his family and employees bundled some $108,000 in campaign contributions just to state campaigns and an additional $111,000 to federal campaigns, according to state and federal documents.

Naturally, the company says Tigani hasn't been affiliated with them in years, and politicians pshaw the notion that free beer and trips influence their votes.

Remember, it's the number of hundred dollar bills that count, not the number of votes.