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Recent Articles By Melinda Roth

National Features

Date the FCC relaxed its own supervision of telecommunications' mergers, allowing AT&T to buy MediaOne: Oct. 6, 1998.

Third-highest contributor to McCain's campaigns since 1982: AT&T.

Top "soft-money" donor to political parties that year: AT&T.

· Some Missourians who gave $1,000 or more to McCain's presidential campaign: Zane Barnes (retired chairman, Southwestern Bell Corp.), Sam Fox (chairman, Harbour Group), Jerald Kent (president and CEO, Charter Communications Inc.), James S. McDonnell III (former vice president, shareholder, McDonnell Douglas Corp.), Edith Spink (former Ladue mayor), Andrew Taylor.

· Candidate who recommended in 1997 that the federal government sell 47,000 acres of publicly owned Elk Hills reserve to Occidental Petroleum: Al Gore.

Amount Occidental's oil reserves grew as a result of the purchase: 300 percent.

Amount Gore receives every year from Tennessee land deal brokered by former Occidental chairman Armand Hammer: $20,000.

Date of the White House Conference on Climate Change, where Gore said future generations will ask us about our unchecked use of fossil fuels: "If you knew all that, why didn't you do something about it?": Oct. 6, 1997.

Date of the announcement of the Occidental sale: The same day.

· Some Missourians who gave $1,000 or more to Gore's presidential campaign: Joyce Aboussie (House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt's political director), S. Lee Kling (local businessman and chairman, Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission), Michael Lazaroff (former partner, Thompson Coburn law firm), Eugene Slay (cousin of aldermanic president and mayoral candidate Francis Slay), Wayman Smith (president, St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners, and vice president of corporate affairs, A-B), George "Buzz" Westfall (St. Louis County executive).

· Bradley's sixth-largest campaign contributor overall: Prudential Insurance Co. of America.

Worth of tax breaks received by Prudential in the 1986 tax-reform legislation sponsored by Bradley: $24 million.

Amount that a Prudential subsidiary was fined in 1994 by the FEC when the company's president told employees to donate to Bradley's campaign: $550,000.

· Some Missourians who gave $1,000 or more to Bradley's presidential bid: August Busch III, Missouri Secretary of State Bekki Cook, William Danforth, Lou Fusz (president, Lou Fusz Automotive Network), S. Lee Kling, William Maritz, Missouri Attorney General Jeremiah "Jay" Nixon, Emily Pulitzer (arts patron and member of the board of directors, Pulitzer Inc.), Geri Rothman-Serot (former St. Louis County councilwoman and congressional candidate), Wayman Smith, Irv Zuckerman (co-owner, Contemporary Productions).

Largest Missouri donor, including lawyers and relatives, to Bradley overall: Bryan Cave LLP, $60,753.

· Top ZIP-code area for Bush-campaign contributions: 75206 (Dallas, Texas). For McCain: 85253 (Paradise Valley, Ariz.); for Keyes, 51201 (Sheldon, Iowa); for Buchanan: 29302 (Spartanburg, S.C.); for Bradley: 10021 (New York City); for Gore: 10021 (New York City).

· Missourians who contributed to both Bradley's and Bush's campaigns: August Busch III, William Danforth, John McDonnell, Sanford McDonnell.

· Generosity of Bush's top 10 contributors (totaling contributions from relatives, employees of the same business and related political-action committees): $1.3 million. Total given by McCain's top 10 givers: $333,655. Total to Keyes: $15,000.

· McCain's position on health-care reform: "I believe we should focus our efforts on solutions that build on the strengths of the current system rather than falling for the phony remedies that rely on government mandates or bureaucratic command and control measures that will only increase the health-care costs and diminish the quality of care."

Amount McCain has received from the health-insurance industry since 1994: $322,000.

· Top five contributors to Bradley's presidential bid (including employees, relatives and PACs): Goldman Sachs, a New York investment-banking firm; Citigroup, the world's largest financial-services firm; Merrill Lynch, America's largest retail-brokerage firm; Lehman Bros., a New York holding company; Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter & Co., a New York firm that specializes in securities, asset management and credit cards.

Number of tax breaks given to corporations in the 1986 Tax Reform Act sponsored by Bradley in the U.S. Senate: 650.

What Bradley told States News Service when asked whether there were too many corporate tax breaks in the bill: "They are a very small speck on the larger map of what the bill means to middle-income taxpayers and low-income taxpayers across this country."

Estimated amount of the "small speck": $10.6 billion.

· One of Bush's ideas for campaign-finance reform: Ban unions and corporations from making "soft money" contributions.

Amount of "soft money" donated to various national Republican committees since 1997 by Bush's top presidential-primary contributor, MBNA America Bank: $460,000.

Amount of "soft money" donated to political parties since 1997 by Bush's top 10 presidential-primary contributors: $2 million.

· Missourians credited with helping raise at least $100,000 for Bush's campaign: John Mahaffey (president, Mahaffey Enterprises Inc.); Ray Wagner (legislative vice president, Enterprise Rent-A-Car); Sam Fox; Stephen Brauer (president, Hunter Engineering Corp.); William H.T. Bush (chairman, Bush-O'Donnell & Co.).

· McCain's position on gun control: "I don't support gun bans or other measures that impinge on constitutionally protected individual rights."

Amount of contributions to McCain from gun-control interests since 1994: $0.

Amount of contributions from the National Rifle Association since 1994: $30,000.

· What Woodrow Wilson said in 1912 while campaigning for president: "The government of the United States is a foster child of the special interests."

Sources: Center for Public Integrity, Center for Responsive Politics, Knight Ridder, Federal Election Commission, The Associated Press, Public Campaign, Common Cause

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