Posted on 07/17/2006 4:43:40 AM PDT by PDR
An alliance of nearly a hundred of the nation's wealthiest donors is roiling Democratic political circles, directing more than $50 million in the past nine months to liberal think tanks and advocacy groups in what organizers say is the first installment of a long-term campaign to compete more aggressively against conservatives....
But the large checks and demanding style wielded by Democracy Alliance organizers in recent months have caused unease among Washington's community of Democratic-linked organizations. The alliance has required organizations that receive its endorsement to sign agreements shielding the identity of donors. Public interest groups said the alliance represents a large source of undisclosed and unaccountable political influence.
Democracy Alliance also has left some Washington political activists concerned about what they perceive as a distinctly liberal tilt to the group's funding decisions. Some activists said they worry that the alliance's new clout may lead to groups with a more centrist ideology becoming starved for resources.
Democracy Alliance was formed last year with major backing from billionaires such as financier George Soros and Colorado software entrepreneur Tim Gill. The inspiration, according to founders, was a belief that Democrats became the minority party in part because liberals do not have a well-funded network of policy shops, watchdog groups and training centers for activists equivalent to what has existed for years on the right.
But the alliance's early months have been marked by occasional turmoil, according to several people who are now or have recently been affiliated with the group. Made up of billionaires and millionaires who are accustomed to calling the shots, the group at times has gotten bogged down in disputes about its funding priorities and mission, participants said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Gates Foundation sure got a big money dump wonder if he'll be giving????
Attempt? You would think they had already succeeded......We no longer have freedom of the press, just a group of propagandists.
Soros' presence speaks for itself; Gill is noted for founding Quark and enthusiastic sodomy. No doubt John Tester in Montana is high on their list of candidates to push over the top.
It's already happened with the Mafia and JFK. Old man Kennedy's partners in many business concerns stole the primary in West Virginia and the election in Illinois.
JFK didn't go along with all of their ideas, look what happened to him.
More turmoil for the Dems is a good thing.
I worry about this. too. I think Soros, Lewis, Fonda et al put up $50 million for Kerry. They didn't win, but they sure made a mockery of campaign finance. This is secret, though. So, it is even worse.
Ideas can overcome a lack of money, but money can't overcome a lack of ideas. Young people are less excited about Liberalism because it's all old hat: maintaining FDR's New Deal, LBJ's Great Society, and SCOTUS decisions from the '60s and 70s. Liberalism has no future.
The exclusive donor club includes millionaires such as Susie Tompkins Buell and her husband, Mark Buell, major backers of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.),
SNIP
Bernard L. Schwartz, retired chief executive of Loral Space & Communications Inc. and an alliance donor, said the group offers partners "an array of opportunities that have passed their smell test." This is most helpful, he said, for big donors who lack the time to closely examine their political investment options.
Bernie's back in town?
Well, you've done it: you've linked her to Soros and this tells me which way she's going -- regardless of how she "moderates" herself.
Bookmark this.
"Young people are less excited about Liberalism because it's all old hat: maintaining FDR's New Deal, LBJ's Great Society, and SCOTUS decisions from the '60s and 70s."
Very true. More young people are becoming excited by conservative ideas and their potential to improve the country.
but we'll probably only hear the sound of crickets since it's being done by the party of his (secret) affiliation ...
Yep. The amazing thing is this is a Washington Post article.
so the revolution of the left is being funded, indreictly, by the chinese army.... maybe we should have looked at those files more closely.
so the revolution of the left is being funded, indreictly, by the chinese army.... maybe we should have looked at those files more closely.
Communist Goals (1963)
Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35
January 10, 1963
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a37ebc13801fd.htm
Another way for liberals to waste money.
I encourage more of this!
The DA's prime mover is Rob Stein, a lawyer and ex-DNC chief of staff who spent years trying to unravel the strands of the conservative movement. Stein entered his conclusions into a Power Point presentation that presented the liberal to conservative organizational deficit in a way that stunned many of the party's top fundraisers.
many DA donors are frustrated with the pace of the project. Stein agreed to relinquish day-to-day control; DAers say he was a poor manager, better at evangelizing than motivating employeers.
To replace him as CEO, the DA hired a partner from McKinsey and Co's San Francisco office -- Judy Wade - who has no political experience.
At the last DA meeting, held in Atlanta in October, the group moved forward on its plans to raise $250K each from 1,000 individuals over five years and wrote checks to groups like the Center for American Progress and to David Brock's Media Matters.
But CAP and Media Matters (and Air America) get money from other, non-DA sources too. And labor unions remain the financial engine of the Democratic Party. And the parties themselves are raising lots more than they use to. And in 2008, prospective presidential candidates will blow through state spending limits and might raise $1 billion between them.
http://tinyurl.com/jvvrp
Guy Saperstein opened the Oakland firm in 1972 after spending two years in representing legal aid clients in Colorado.
Barry Goldstein, 56, joined the firm in 1989 after 18 years with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in Washington, D.C.
Goldstein says he was attracted to the firm's work in the employment discrimination field and Saperstein's vision of a for-profit civil rights law firm.
After the 2002 mid-term elections, Mr. Stein, a former investment banker and veteran of Bill Clinton's Commerce Department, burned the midnight oil researching conservative groups. His effort resulted in the Phoenix Project, a series of PowerPoint presentations he began showing to select individuals two years ago. His outline of the conservative movement's rise to power struck a chord with political venture capitalists, who marveled at the scale of what they were up against. The effort reached critical mass this spring, when financier and Democratic activist George Soros headlined a meeting of 70 millionaires and billionaires in Scottsdale, Ariz., to discuss how to grow the left's ideological assets.
Recently released 2005 Federal Election Commission reports indicate that five of the top 10 richest tax-exempt 527 political issue groups were liberal. Of the top 10 political action committees, eight were liberal or affiliated with organized labor, with substantially more cash on hand than conservative groups such as the National Rifle Association or GOP-friendly corporate PACs such as the National Association of Realtors.
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