WASHINGTON INSIGHT

PASSING THE HAT: Republican presidential hopeful Lamar Alexander calls it an amazing gaffe. At the same time GOP rival Steve Forbes was attacking Alexander in television ads last week, Forbes’ campaign was mistakenly sending the Tennessean a letter asking for $1,000 to help pay for the spots. In exchange, the letter promised that Alexander would be kept abreast of his candidacy--and it cooed: “I will be counting on you for your advice and counsel throughout my campaign.” Alexander responded by holstering his wallet but not his tongue. “We know who’s paying the bills over at the Forbes campaign,” he said, “but sometimes I wonder who’s really calling the shots.” Forbes is financing his campaign largely from his own pocket. “These things happen,” said Forbes’ press secretary, Gretchen Morgenson. “We’ve gotten plenty of those from our opponents as well.” Pause. “Actually, Mr. Forbes says that he believes in conversion.”

*

OTHER GINGRICH: Candace Gingrich, the gay activist sister of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), will hit the road in spring as part of a national campaign to rid Congress of anti-gay lawmakers in November. Armed with a roster of about 150 members of Congress, Candace Gingrich is spearheading the drive for the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the nation’s largest gay political lobby. At the top of the hit list are Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), who has called the homosexual lifestyle “deliberate, disgusting and revolting,” and Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), who once said that every “lesbian spear-chucker” in the community wants to see him lose. (He later amended that remark, noting that he meant to say “lesbian spear-carrier.”) Conspicuously absent: Brother Newt, his comparison of homosexuality to alcoholism notwithstanding. But officials for the human rights campaign say that the list is by no means finite.

*

ACCESS AUCTION: Fat cats and corporate biggies who contributed or raised $250,000 for Wednesday’s Republican National Committee fund-raising dinner could look forward to a lunch with Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.). Further escalating the capital’s campaign money chase, the committee hoped to raise more than $15 million at its annual gala. Much of the funds were expected to be “soft money”--allowing donors to escape federal contribution limits and permitting corporations and labor unions to give large sums. Common Cause, beating the drums for campaign-finance reform, urged freshman Republicans to live up to their self-image as reformers by boycotting the event. The funds-for-favors controversy is distinctly bipartisan: President Clinton was criticized when it was disclosed last year that a $100,000 donor to the Democratic National Committee would be rewarded with two meals each with Clinton and Vice President Al Gore and a spot on a foreign trade mission.

*

CLOTHES HORSE: Once you’ve roared around the capital on your Harley, worn bolo ties on the floor of Congress and jumped from the Democratic Party to the Republican, what’s left? How about Banana Republic poster boy. Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, ever the style maverick, has now posed astride his motorcycle for print advertisements featuring “American originals” clad in the clothing chain’s garb. From the waist up, Campbell will be Banana Republic. But the rakish leather pants and biker boots were his own, says press aide Alton Dillard. As befits a model congressman, the Native American senator took his payment in the form of a donation from the retailer to Dull Knife Memorial College in Lame Deer, Mont.