From Nate Silver:
. . .senators from small states tend to be relatively more dependant on special-interest money -- it makes up a larger share of their overall take. Senators from the ten smallest states have received, on average, 28.4 percent of their campaign funds from corporate PACs, versus 13.7 for those in the ten largest. There is a tendency to think of senators from small states as being populists, and there are a few instances in which this is accurate -- Jon Tester of Montana and John Thune of South Dakota, for instance, are relatively non-dependant on PAC money. But for the most part, something the opposite is true, and senators from small states in fact have more incentive to placate special interests.
It is worth noting, by the way, that the six senators on Baucus's mini-committee are especially egregious in this regard. They rank #1 (Mike Enzi), #6 (Chuck Grassley), #11 (Kent Conrad), #13 (Baucus), #14 (Jeff Bingaman) and #20 (Olympia Snowe) in the share of contributions received from corporate PACs (an average of 47.5 percent of their funds overall).
So please let's stop with this idea that these healthcare "moderates" are primarily concerned about to their conservative constituencies back home.