Colorado’s New Belgium Brewing has a large distribution map and now they are entering into the political realm to help broadcast their beer message.
They will be forming their a New Belgium political action committee (PAC). A PAC is formed by a group looking to protect or advance a particular agenda by supporting candidates and issues via the almighty dollar.
New Belgium is looking to “keeping a finger on the pulse” of legislative efforts in Colorado, North Carolina, and within the federal government, as well.” as well as “supporting candidates and issues that are important to craft brewing.”
That means water and the environment which New Belgium has already been a big advocate for will be on their agenda along with the Small Brewer Reinvestment and Expanding Workforce Act (BREW Act), which seeks to reduce excise taxes for craft brewers.
I am of two minds on this development. The Stewart/Colbert part of me thinks that PAC’s are generally the domain of the skeezy. They all seem to have vague names and even more vague donors and they seem (again in general), to demote rather than promote. By that, I mean that they use the vagueness and anonymity to besmirch the names and actions of others or to hold moderate politicians hostage by threatening to get a more radical member of their party elected. Hence the left to right gridlock that we are stuck in now. There seems to be precious little promoting a slate of candidates and issues on their merits alone.
Maybe New Belgium can be an example of a new way that PAC’s can be used. At the very least, the fact that it’s funding is in the daylight is one step. And with a narrow focus on one industry instead of all domestic and foreign policy, the lure of DC siren call to step into the quagmire should be limited. Count me as cautiously optimistic.