The Buying of the President [Paperback]

Charles Lewis (Author), Alejandro Benes (Author), Meredith O'Brien (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1996

This explosive guide to the big money sources behind the presidential candidates features hard-hitting facts culled from public records, detailed pie charts and easily referenced top ten lists of financial supporters for all the candidates who have already declared their intentions to run, as well as those judged likely to declare.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An informative if chilling look into the financing of presidential campaigns. Based on data carefully culled from mountains of public records, this book is an incisive, unbiased guide to the money power behind the candidates. Who finances each candidate and how will their investment pay off? Do not vote until you've read this book.

From Library Journal

A follow-up to the 1996 edition.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 271 pages
• Publisher: Avon Books (P) (February 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380784203
• ISBN-13: 978-0380784202
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,081,063 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars THIS BOOK IS A MAJOR AND UNIQUE ACHIEVEMENT, January 28, 2000

By 

BURTON M. COHN - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Buying of the President 2000 (Paperback)

This book is a major achievement. Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity transform voluminous raw data on political contributions into a meaningful form. Gathering this data involves a considerable amount of analysis and detailed judgements. This has been done only in more limited ways by other organizations. As far as I know, "The Buying of the President 2000" is unique in matching money with legislation and other favors. It discusses both soft money and hard money. And, it is available before the primaries and the presidential election.

The Center advances publishing technology by putting the supporting information on its website, which simplifies the content of the book. The website includes footnotes, the top 25 career patrons to each candidate (the book lists the top 10), candidate financial disclosure forms, interview transcripts, matters under review, and more.

Mr. Lewis focuses on relationships between candidates and their contributors. He rejects searching for a quid pro quo, a smoking gun that would prove that contributions buy particular favors. Proving that there is a direct tie is difficult if not impossible. Relationships over a long period of time are demonstrated more easily.

There is a dilemma in presenting the data. Mr. Lewis mentions, "...our self-prescribed function of an honest broker of information......." However, I have yet to see anyone else use the data in the book to do further research and to ask hard questions to the candidates. Perhaps Mr. Lewis is irritated and he uses quotes and judgmental language to create a sinister picture. It would be a stronger book if he stuck to "brokering the information" and left the judgements to further journalistic investigation.

I conclude that presenting the data in a useful form, and describing the relationship of contributions to political favors advances the state-of-the-art on campaign disclosure. Removing judgmental language would raise my rating to 5+ for "The Buying of the President 2000."

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every American Should Read This Book, October 27, 2000

By 

The Orange Duke "orangeduke" (Cupertino, Ca United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Buying of the President 2000 (Paperback)

Stop reading and just push the Buy It Button. Excellently written and carefully researched. This book is a damning indictment of the political process itself, as well as the two parties and all of their representatives. It explains in detail who owns our `elected officials' and why are democracy is failing. No one is spared. After reading it you will be unable to vote for the tweedle dee/tweedle dumb hacks that the political establishment puts forth every election cycle. This book will never be out dated. Even after the election it will serve as an example for the future. It reveals the reasons laws are specifically written to aid special interests (see especially the Bradley section). I disagree strongly with Mr. Cohn's complaint about objectivity. How can one feign objectivity about the mass corruption that is destroying our society? Read it, live it! Get out of the two party rut; this book explains why you must. I also recommend the 1996 version.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important Account, February 12, 2001

By 

Robertomelbourne (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Buying of the President 2000 (Paperback)

An important analytical account of the issue of hard and soft money going towards camapign fundraising in the US presidential race. It effectively, and simply highlights the growing amounts of money that is being pushed into campaigns, and an important outcome is the need for sensible campaign reform principlly placing a ceiling on campaign expenditure to overcome the ludicrous state of US campiagn financing and expenditure.