[rasteau]

The prisoner's dilemma hinges on lack of communication between the prisoners. In the original scenario, communicating prisoners would both choose to stay silent. In the above scenario, communicating politicians would choose to never let the bill out of committee.

[JumpCrisscross]

> communicating politicians would choose to never let the bill out of committee

This presumes every politician is equally dependent on outside financing. Self-financed and small-donation financed politicians would be politically incentivized to bunch together and knock the legs out from under the competition's money machine.

Politics is complicated. Condemning campaign finance reform is premature. (Saying it's a tough fight would be accurate.)