Great thread idea.
Seems to me that any entity - individual, group or business - that can purchase influence with lawmakers is suspect, and the fact that they can purchase influence often means that they will.
At the same time, there are many (and we'll see them on this thread) who look at corporations en masse and simplistically look at them as "evil" (good word you used there). Profits are evil, etc. And these same people will usually ignore the fact that the reason for the existence of any given corporation is not to put food on your table or hire you because of the color of your skin or the nature of your genitals, it's to maximize value to shareholders.
They trust the government more than those evil corporations, whether they can prove the evil corporation is doing something wrong or not.