Among the high rollers and influence peddlers involved in the dark side of Democratic Party fund-raising during the mid-1990's, Johnny Chung is a fairly small fry.

So public relations agencies that once looked with disdain on the button-holers and influence peddlers of Capitol Hill have been snapping up Washington's most politically connected lobbying firms.

A self-published populist treatise arguing that presidential elections had fallen into the hands of a cabal of Eastern establishment bankers and influence peddlers, the book sold three million copies.

If this was what you had to put up with, to work with the money suppliers and influence peddlers of the system ... "I did promise you."

"The people who ride Metro-North are prized animals for marketers, influence peddlers, surveyors, and people who want to do product sampling or research; you name it," she said.

And he trashed the "alligator-shoe crowd" of lobbyists and influence peddlers, promising that if he took over they "would wind up in the Smithsonian."

Other times, influence peddlers who had made large campaign contributions would lean on city agencies to do their bidding.

"But what you have in the Wedtech case is millions of dollars going out to influence peddlers," he said.

Despoilers of Democracy (1965), Doubleday, "The real story of what Washington propagandists, arrogant bureaucrats, mismanagers, influence peddlers, and outright corrupters are doing to our Federal Government"

At a time when even Congress is showing a long-overdue interest in lobbying and campaign reform, New York remains a land of opportunity for lobbyists, fund-raisers and influence peddlers.