Sen. Bob Dole

Your article “Dole Campaign Cashes In on Its Front-Runner Image” (July 28) paints an ugly but enlightening picture of American politics.

Bob Dole’s $1,000-a-plate parties and Bill Clinton’s fund-raisers promising private meetings with the President in exchange for $100,000 contributions demonstrate how far we are from a true democracy in this country.

Under a system where, as the Dole aides say, contributors “view writing a check as a sound investment,” the obvious question must be, what happens to those people without the money to invest? It is not surprising that today’s politicians have chosen to attack affirmative action, school lunch programs and environmental protections while maintaining government subsidies and tax breaks for big campaign funders like the oil and tobacco companies.

Fed up with politics as usual, a group of us have launched an initiative campaign in California to get big money out of politics.

Until we have campaign finance reforms that limit campaign contributions to $100, the concerns of the average American will only be worth as much as the campaign check he/she is able to write. And with competition from major funders who can hand over $100,000 donations, it’s unlikely the average voter will receive anything more than political lip service.

WENDY WENDLANDT, Coordinator

California Public Interest Research

Group’s Committee Against Political

Corruption, Los Angeles

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* Dole says, if elected, he will be another Ronald Reagan. Does that mean that he will quadruple the national debt to $16 trillion?

DON HANLEY

Vista