An online chili vendor gets political:

Now, Maricle is worried that the big boys might gain an edge on the virtual highway where he set up shop. That explains why he and five other Internet devotees from Albuquerque sat down with Republican Rep. Heather Wilson in late February to urge her to act on “Net neutrality,” legislation that aims to block telephone companies from providing a premium service to Internet customers who pay higher fees.

— The Human Face of Net Neutrality, By: Jeanne Cummings, The Politico, April 9, 2007 05:34 PM EST

Politicians respond to local constituents.

And sometimes people can trump money:

By traditional lobbying standards, it would seem the telephone gang has the edge. In the 2004 election cycle and the start of the 2006 midterms, the phone companies’ total political contributions amounted to $9.1 million compared with the West Coast newcomers’ $2.7 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The telephone coalition also spent more than $255 million in 2003 and 2004 to influence members compared with the Internet coalition’s $43.8 million, the center’s research found.

But each side also is aligned with grass-roots activists, recruiting citizen lobbyists who can humanize the complex issue for lawmakers in a way that a campaign contribution check never could. That’s where the Internet team has gained an edge. It is working with Save the Internet, a group that includes Internet users, and MoveOn.org, a Democratically aligned online organization with millions of members and plenty of close relationships with the new leadership in Congress.

If there weren’t net neutrality, it would be harder for grassroots organization to take place through the Internet. So the “telephone gang” would more easily win whatever it wanted. Could this be one reason they don’t want net neutrality?

-jsq

PS: Seen on Politics 2.0.