The unexpected political power of dentists

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-unexpected-political-power-of-dentists/2017/07/01/ee946d56-54f3-11e7-a204-ad706461fa4f_story.html

The unexpected political power of dentists
By Mary Jordan | July 1 at 6:34 PM

AUGUSTA, Maine — Little in politics has surprised Richard Malaby as much as the power of dentists.

For years, local dentists held four Christmas parties at Malaby’s 19th-century country inn in the picturesque town of Hancock. But in 2014, Malaby, a Republican lawmaker in the Maine state legislature, voted to create a new type of dental provider to perform basic services in poor and rural areas.

The Maine Dental Association, which opposed the bill, was furious. And the dentists took their Christmas parties elsewhere, costing Malaby $6,000 that December and every Yuletide since.

Among the general public, dentists tend to have a Norman Rockwell appeal — solo practitioners who clean your teeth, tell your kids to cut down on the candy, and put their seal of approval on a range of minty toothpastes and mouthwashes. But lawmakers from Maine to Alaska see a different side of dentists and their lobby, the American Dental Association, describing a political force so unified, so relentless and so thoroughly woven into American communities that its clout rivals that of the gun lobby.