Q: Soft money. What's soft about it?
Lewis: Basically, you never know how it's spent. Hard money would be contributions directly to a candidate, for any federal office. But soft money goes to the party to get out the vote and for voter registration and all these sort of nebulous things that goes out across the country.
And finding out exactly how this money was spent and where is always an adventure in futility. And you almost never can found out. And I have to tell you, I've never found anyone really to explain to me lucidly and coherently what happened to this money.
Q: Assuming that I were a greedy and purposeful businessman, and I wanted to put my campaign contributions on a particular set of politicians to get a particular result, why would I go soft if it's all so nebulous?
Lewis: Well, no, it's not nebulous to the person receiving it. Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party leadership know exactly where that money came from, and they also know the interest of the folks giving it, usually . . .
First of all, once the nominee has the nomination secure, once Clinton and Dole know that there's no competition -- obviously with Clinton there is none, Dole has to fight it out a little -- once the race is set, then they start planting soft money. Then instead of asking for $1,000, or 'Can you do a fund-raiser in Cleveland?' it's, 'We need $100,000 from your company for the general election.'
A Lamar Alexander is not going to start worrying about soft money right now. He's worried about just getting through Iowa and New Hampshire and having enough money to pay for ads in those states. And that does not involve soft money. So soft money is mostly used in the general election, which this year, because we have 35 primaries in 29 days, and the two nominees will be known fairly clearly by March, [will be] the largest, longest general election campaign in U.S. history, from March to November. And then soft money becomes an issue.
Q: In the last presidential election, how much money was categorized as soft money, for everybody?
Lewis: I should know this exactly, but I think it's around $80 to $100 million, in that range. It's a lot of money. It's a ton of money.
What the American people probably don't know is that today, the Republican and Democratic Parties get 70% of their money each from companies, corporations. And for the Democratic Party, that's particularly amazing. Historically, the Democratic Party has portrayed itself as the party of the little man or the little person, the average worker.
Q: Let me talk about [Commerce Secretary] Ron Brown and his plane. What is the big deal about being on an airplane with a Cabinet member of the United States government?
Lewis: If you are trying to do business overseas, and you're trying to get in to see the Premier of a country, or Prime Minister or President, or whatever, having the Secretary of Commerce, or someone from the President of the United States' Cabinet as part of an official delegation, it means you're going to go to all these dinners at embassies and government palaces and everything, and it means you get access to power in other countries.
