THE APPETIZERS BETTER BE GOOD...

By JEFFREY H. BIRNBAUM/WASHINGTON

WANT TO HAVE LUNCH WITH NEWT? WHAT ABOUT BREAKFAST WITH the future Republican nominee for President? Or drinks on a yacht with California Governor Pete Wilson and other G.O.P. Governors? All this access to powerful people is for sale, and can be yours, for a mere $250,000. Make checks payable to the Republican National Committee.

Last week, on the day before the House approved a bill to keep better track of lobbyists, R.N.C. chairman Haley Barbour mailed fund-raising letters to many of the lobbyists the bill is supposed to rein in. Even in a city inured to the crass trading of favors for campaign cash, the Barbour letter, signed simply "Haley," is extraordinarily blatant. It opens, "Let me get right to the point," and lays out in detail the special access money can buy, ranging from photographs with the Republican presidential contenders to cocktails in a private skybox at the G.O.P. convention in San Diego next August. The more contributors give--$15,000, $45,000, $150,000 or $250,000--the more they get in return.

Democrats, of course, have their own history of swapping power moments for big bucks. When Lloyd Bentsen served as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in 1987, he planned to charge lobbyists $10,000 for the privilege of having breakfast with him. And this year, the Democratic National Committee offered two meals with President Clinton and Vice President Gore for $100,000. But the latest Republican appeal is the largest ever: it seeks to raise a record $15 million at the Jan. 24 Annual Gala--the Republicans' main fund-raising dinner--which is $3 million more than the 1995 affair.

So the Republicans are offering an array of enticements, according to the letter obtained by TIME. A person who gives $250,000 or solicits others to give that much is designated a gala co-chairman, gets lunch with Senate majority leader Bob Dole as well as Speaker Gingrich, priority seating at the gala, and four priority tickets to the convention. For $150,000, a donor becomes a vice chairman but gets only two convention tickets. The $45,000 donor is a deputy chairman, eats breakfast with Gingrich, but gets no tickets and no lunch. A $15,000 dinner-committee member is not even promised a special seat at the gala, though, like the others, he gets to meet privately with important lawmakers.

The R.N.C. is prepared to pamper supporters who want to work the phones themselves. It has scheduled two "phone days" in the tony Hay-Adams Hotel across from the White House. Of this offer and others in the Barbour letter, R.N.C. spokeswoman Mary Crawford says, "That's just sort of the way it's done." That may be exactly why the Republicans of Newt's revolution are unlikely soon to rewrite the laws governing checkbook politics.

--By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum/Washington