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New Hampshire: Battle of the Big Bucks

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On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, some analysts argue that money has largely determined the front runners.

GEORGE W. BUSH
Raised in this race: $57,120,597. Top career patrons: Enron Corporation (natural gas), $555,275; Sanchez family (banking, oil and gas), $322,400; Vinson & Elkins (law firm), $316,950; Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst (a leverage buyout firm; its founder bought the Texas Rangers from Bush and his partners in 1998), $305,150; Bass family (financed Harken Energy’s drilling in Bahrain in 1990 when Bush was a Harken director), $273,927; The Sterling Group (merchant bank), $259,000; MBNA Corporation, $244,416; Pilgrim’s Pride (poultry), $230,750; Farmers Insurance, $228,250; Wyly family (investments, software), $222,773.

AL GORE
Raised: $24,090,960. Career patrons: Ernst & Young International, $134,375; BellSouth, $106,250; Citigroup (with deregulation of banking, recently merged with Travelers, creating the largest financial services company in the world), $101,750; Goldman Sachs, $101,750; D.E. Shaw & Company/Shaw and Kobliner families (global securities and investment; D.E. Shaw has been an advisor to Gore on educational technology), $98,000; Viacom (buying CBS), $95,800; Mattel/The Learning Company (software), $77,000; Eskind family, Nashville, Tenn., $74,500; Walt Disney (ABC), $73,000; Olan Mills family (portrait studios), $67,950.

STEVE FORBES
Raised: $20,789,410. Top career patrons are him and employees, $53,712,787.

BILL BRADLEY
Raised: $18,993,035. Career patrons: Citigroup, $454,065; Merrill Lynch, $169,500; Goldman Sachs, $148,800; Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, $129,675; Time Warner, $112,770; Prudential Insurance, $102,601; Printon, Kane & Company (bonds), $97,915; Walt Disney (ABC) , $95,415; The Equitable (insurance), $94,110; Lehman Brothers Holdings, $91,250.

JOHN McCAIN
Raised: $9,294,824. Career patrons: US West, $110,270; Hensley & Company, (Arizona’s largest distributor of Anheuser-Busch products; McCain’s wife is the daughter of the founder; McCain had a public relations job with Hensley & Co. when he first ran for Congress in 1982), $82,300; AT&T, $75,250; BellSouth, $65,750; Boeing, $61,900; Viacom, $61,750; SBC Communications, $61,250; Bank of America, $57,468; Del Webb Corporation (formerly casinos, now planned retirement communities), $56,535; Goldman Sachs, $52,105.

The following analysts are available for comment:

PETER EISNER
Eisner is managing director of the Center for Public Integrity. Its “The Buying of the President 2000” is the source for career patrons data.
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SHEILA KRUMHOLZ
Research director of the Center for Responsive Politics, source for money raised in this race.

BEATRICE NEWBURY
Research director for Money Watch 2000, a project of New Hampshire Citizens Alliance.
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167