51.  Attorney General Janet Reno must soon decide whether to ask for an independent counsel to investigate the soft money ad campaign.

52.  Backers of the legislation say million-dollar soft money donations have too much influence on government.

53.  Ban soft money.

54.  Attorney General Janet Reno had resisted Republican calls for an independent counsel to investigate Gore because soliciting soft money did not violate the law.

55.  Banning soft money given by corporations and labor unions but not individuals.

56.  Auto-dialed politics also helps to explain why soft money, for all the influence it wields in present-day politics, is no more efficient in producing results.

57.  Besides banning soft money, it would limit the ability of outside advocacy groups to run thinly disguised campaign advertisements in the period before elections.

58.  Before this presidential campaign is over, the parties are expected to raise a whopping half-billion dollars in soft money.

59.  Bipartistan legislation that would have barred political parties from handling soft money was killed in Congress this year.

60.  Birnbaum says that the Clinton-Gore money team has taken soft money to a new level.