1.   A bipartisan drive to change the rules for financing federal campaigns is running into stiff resistance from veteran members of Congress.

2.   Gingrich shook hands with Clinton last June promising to appoint a commission to change the way congressional campaigns are financed.

3.   Political campaigns were financed by such groups, and political consensus was brokered between such organizations.

4.   And you forced them to become the best advertisement yet for the need to revamp the way campaigns are financed.

5.   Another state official, Lt. Gov. Melinda Schwegmann, the wife of a wealthy grocery executive who financed her campaign, finished a distant fifth.

6.   Another allowed candidates more leeway in fund raising if they were facing an opponent who used his or her personal wealth to finance a campaign.

7.   Ballot questions could herald many changes, among them how politicians finance their campaigns and whether public agencies must continue to hire on the basis of race and gender.

8.   Before then, presidential campaigns were often financed by wealthy individuals and corporations that donated huge sums.

9.   Both parties used soft money to finance advertising campaigns virtually indistinguishable from those financed by hard money.