Presidential Politics Comes With A Price Corporations, The Rich Compete To Influence Powerful Officials

President Clinton has raised the most money in his political career from the New York investment banking firm of Goldman, Sachs; Senate Majority Leader Robert J. Dole, R-Kan., from the Gallo wine family; and Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, from the National Rifle Association, according to a new book about the 1996 presidential candidates.

The book, “The Buying of the President,” by Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity, also found that former Tennessee governor Lamar Alexander’s top giver was the David K. Wilson family of Nashville, which has real estate and banking interests.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., raised the most money from the Eli Lilly & Co., the pharmaceutical manufacturer in his home state, while Patrick J. Buchanan, whose efforts at elective office are shorter than most of his competitors’, raised the largest amount in his 1992 presidential race from the Vopnford family of Nebraska, identified as being in the recreation business.

The Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington, studied available records from the Federal Election Commission, state governments and other sources to determine the top 10 “career patrons” of the 1996 presidential candidates.

It said that in a number of cases, there were instances of the candidates taking action on behalf of their large donors.

For example, it said, the Ernest and Julio Gallo family has given $381,000 to Dole’s campaign and political action committees and his Better America Foundation.

It gave another $790,000 to the Dole Foundation, Dole’s charitable organization.

For his part, the center said, Dole helped the Gallos save millions in inheritance taxes with an amendment in the 1986 tax reform bill; supported an agricultural subsidy program from which the Gallo winery has benefited; and intervened in behalf of Gallo with the Treasury Department in a dispute over champagne labeling.

“It gives the impression that legislation is being bought and sold, to be perfectly blunt,” Lewis said at a news conference Thursday.

Lewis called the presidential campaign “not so much a beauty contest or a horse race, but instead a giant auction, in which multimillion-dollar interests compete to influence and gain access to the candidates.”

The Gallo family also gave $50,000 over the years to President Clinton, making them his fifth largest giver, the center reported.