Many people here surely don't care for the way politicians collect money for campaigns. And many feel uneasy about how President Clinton and Vice President Gore used the White House to woo donors. Nearly two dozen interviews in the western suburbs of St. Louis this week found that most people are too busy working, raising families and worrying about local issues to get too worked up about something as remote from their lives as political fund-raising. That does not mean people here lack political savvy. Missouri has long been a bellwether state in presidential elections.
People here are quite independent and knowledgeable.
But he worries that a quick-fix might make matters worse. Both of Missouri's Republican senators, Christopher Bond and John Ashcroft, voted last week to block legislation, known as the McCain-Feingold bill, that would overhaul the campaign finance system. But few of their constituents interviewed here knew it. This is icing on the cake. But prosperous economic times in this area have tempered discontent with Clinton.