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The American Celebration dinner last week bristled with lobbyists, lawyers and other guests who want influence with whichever party is in power. Multiple tables were bought by representatives of insurance and health-care companies, financial conglomerates and energy concerns. The biggest soft-money contributors to the DNC are the entertainment and communications industries, which gave a combined $4.1 million during the 21 months ending in March. Leading that pack was Time Warner Inc., contributing $508,333, most of which helped underwrite the 1992 Democratic Convention in New York City. Labor unions also bought groups of tables, but their contribution to the D.N.C.'s coffers pales in comparison to that of business donations.
While critics rarely find a smoking quid pro quo, the big contributors usually have major stakes in pending legislation and regulatory rule-making. Communications companies, for example, will be profoundly affected by coming cable-TV regulations and info-superhighway policies. A lobbyist for the Travelers, which has an interest in health-care reform, contributed $100,000 last week. One of the five dinner "co-chairs" was Dwayne Andreas, chief executive of Archer Daniels Midland, who along with his wife and company contributed $270,000 to the D.N.C. between October 1992 and March 1994. (Andreas also donated hefty sums to Republicans when they held the White House.) ADM controls 80% of U.S. production of ethanol, which the Clinton Administration has proposed giving a mandated 30% of the gasoline market in the most polluted American cities. The other side of the issue was represented too: tables for $15,000 were bought by representatives of the energy companies ARCO and CITGO, which oppose the EPA rule that benefits ethanol.
Clinton's fund raising has disappointed reform-minded supporters, several dozen of whom demonstrated outside last week's event. Inside, the President delivered a passionate speech extolling the honorable motives of the donors. He urged them to vocally defend their contributions and to think of their words "as a knife that can cut through stone." He added, "And every time you hear one of your fellow Americans say some cynical and nonsensical thing implying that we're all up here just trying to feather our nest . . . you tell them the truth . . . " The audience applauded, just as the crowd did 20 months ago at the Old State House in Little Rock.