ABSTRACT
From the last week or so of the 1996 election through most of 1997—until the Monica Lewinsky story took over as the press's dominant obsession—the role that money plays in elections became the hot topic for the media and those inside the Beltway. The Chinese government allegedly funneled campaign money into the election in order to influence US policy. The 1996 election seems to have marked the breaking point for a federal campaign-finance system awash in enormous amounts of cash, much of it coming in the form of large and questionable "soft money" contributions. Some 66 percent thought that "political contributions having too much influence on elections and government policy" was a major problem. Studies of electoral outcomes in national, state, and local elections have consistently found a positive correlation between money and vote shares.
