By Andy Ostmeyer

Globe Metro Editor

As a merchant, Sam Walton shied away from politics. Bad for business. Better to remain neutral, at least publicly, on divisive political issues.

Not so his baby.

A search through the database of the Center for Responsive Politics shows a dramatic about-face for Wal-Mart.

A decade ago, in the 1998 election cycle, Wal-Mart gave only $160,825 to federal candidates, with 7 percent of that going to Democrats and 93 percent to Republicans. Fifteen other retailers gave more money in federal races that year.

By 2002, Wal-Mart was giving more than $1 million annually. In the 2004 election, the retailer gave nearly $2.2 million to federal candidates.

So far in the 2008 election cycle, it already has doled out $636,000, and the races are only beginning to heat up.

In this cycle, by the way, Wal-Mart has given 41 percent to Democrats and 59 percent to Republicans, according the Center’s records.

Also in the last six election cycles (1998 to 2008) Wal-Mart’s political action committee has become a major player.

In 1998, Wal-Mart’s PAC collected a paltry $230,796. For the 2004 cycle, the PAC amassed $2.6 million, and for the 2006 cycle, more than $3 million. Already in the 2008 election cycle, Wal-Mart’s PAC has collected more than $1.2 million, with 42 percent going to Democrats and 58 percent to Republicans.

In the last six election cycles, the PAC has collected about $9.5 million, with Southwest Missouri’s own Roy Blunt picking up at least $45,000 of that money.

Political money means little without political connections in the form of a lobbyist, and here, too, Wal-Mart is stepping up big time, according to a recent Associated Press analysis.

Wal-Mart spent nearly $1.8 million in the first six months of 2007 and is on pace to surpass the nearly $2.5 million it spent for all of 2006. And this comes at a time when money spent on lobbying by corporations seems to be slowing down.

Wal-Mart spent more than $4 million on lobbying in the past 18 months compared with the $6.6 million it collectively spent in the prior seven years, according to federal lobbying reports analyzed by the AP.