MEANWHILE, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE AISLE...

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When the money comes from low-level employees of Aqua Leisure, that may be true. But Dole is well aware that for years his biggest cash donors have been the winemaking brothers Ernest and Julio Gallo of California, who have given more than $1 million to his campaigns, think tank and charitable foundation. In return, he helped along the 1986 "Gallo amendment," which allowed the brothers to sidestep the 55% tax on transfers of more than $1 million from grandparent to grandchild. Dole's campaigns have also received significant cash from Dwayne Andreas, the embattled chairman of Illinois agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland. Since 1979, Andreas, his company and his family have provided Dole operations with more than $475,000. Dole showed his gratitude on the Senate Finance Committee, where he brought to his tax-writing duties the subtleties of a Chinese calligrapher. For years Dole managed ingenious defenses of the tax subsidies for ethanol, the corn-based fuel ADM produces, and also sustained the sugar-price-support program. That in turn sustained profits for fructose corn syrup, a sugar substitute that is one of ADM's biggest products.

Sugar could be the underlying theme of Dole's career. The same price supports that benefited ADM were also worth about $65 million a year to the Fanjul family, based in Miami and one of the world's largest sugar producers. Over the past five years, the Fanjuls and their companies have given Dole and his political-action committee more $62,000, plus an additional $419,000 to the Republican Party. During the Republican primaries, Cuban-born Jose Fanjul, who is himself a permanent resident alien, was one of Dole's finance vice chairmen. And since the Fanjuls are a prudent family, Jose's brother Alfonso is a trustee on President Clinton's finance-committee board.

--By Richard Lacayo. With reporting by Viveca Novak and Murray S. Waas/Washington