Kinder, of course, was president of Enron, having helped Ken Lay, his chum from the University of Missouri, build it up through the 1990s.

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"We always felt like we grew up on the other side of the tracks, " says an old chum, Howard Schultz, who has known Blankfein since high school.

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To dig up still more money for his 1998 campaign, he turned to an old law school chum, hedge-fund manager James J.

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