> Have you considered that you just don't write very clearly?

Sure. But I'm writing for an HN comment thread, not a submission to a peer-review journal. My standards are lower here.

Have you considered the possibility that you don't read very carefully?

> trading campaign donations for access, favors, and votes

This is not nearly as black-and-white as you are making it out to be. Consider these scenarios:

1. Joe Politician campaigns on a pledge to vote for a bill you support. You donate to Joe's campaign. Joe wins and votes for the bill.

2. Joe campaigns on a pledge to vote AGAINST the bill you want to see passed. He calls you on the phone asking you to donate. You refuse, explaining that you don't agree with his position. He asks you to explain why you support the bill. You do, and persuade Joe to change his mind. You then change your mind about donating. Joe wins, and votes for the bill.

3. Like scenario 2 above in all respects that are visible to you, except that unbeknownst to you Joe is not actually persuaded by your argument, he only pretends to be. In fact he has decided to make his vote contingent on your contribution. Does that change your answer?

4. Like scenario 3 except that Joe is honest with you and tells you he will vote for the bill if you make a large enough donation.

In which of these, if any, have you traded a campaign contribution for a vote? Because the net of the interaction is exactly the same in all four cases: you write Joe a check, Joe votes for your bill.

> Are you skeptical of the existence of true love too?

That depends on what you mean by "true love".

[UPDATE] I asked my wife of 27 years that question and her answer was exactly the same as mine. I guess that's one reason I love her :-)

> Is everyone in your life just lying to you about everything?

No. You don't understand how deception works. Have you ever played poker? Bluffing doesn't work if you do it too often.

Deploying unethical behavior effectively is a skill, and a big part of that skill is making people think you're not doing it. (Donald Trump is the absolute master of the craft. He is so good at it that he doesn't even have to hide it any more.)

> You still haven't stated what you mean by "free".

You're the one who introduced the word into the conversation, not me. You wrote:

> What differentiates politics, in large part, is that it's not a free, competitive market

So you made a claim that there is something that distinguishes politics from business, and that this thing has something to do with the words "free and competitive". It doesn't really matter what you actually meant because my counter-claim is that there is no salient distinction between business and politics at all, and so you can't distinguish between them based on "freedom" or "competitiveness" no matter what those words mean.

In any case, the onus is on you as the one who made the claim to demonstrate that these words actually have a referent that allows business and politics to be distinguished, otherwise you have made a vacuous claim.

> I wouldn't consider a duopoly to be very competitive.

It isn't. But it's more competitive than a one-party system. Competitiveness is a continuum, not a a dichotomy. But the natural tendency of markets is to consolidate as they grow, and so most large markets trend towards duopolies (if you're lucky or have government intervention) or monopolies.

> I see plenty of markets that aren't so dominated.

Name one.