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Minnesota campaign finance authorities imposed a record fine Tuesday on a political "527" group that spent money in Minnesota on behalf of DFL House candidates and young-voter turnout. Citing a failure by the 21st Century Democrats to adhere to disclosure laws, the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board imposed fines of $292,500 on a 21st Century Minnesota committee and $25,000 on its parent national committee. 21st Century Democrats has been in the spotlight lately because it raised $300,000 from Matt Entenza, Minnesota House DFL minority leader. The board's statement does not name Entenza, nor does he appear to have any...

Our friends at CBS News are at it again -- suggesting that blogs, bloggers, and everything related to non-mainstream media reporting is at the root cause of the troubles in the industry. Not the almost unconscionably poor job that the CBS News research division has been doing in vetting stories for accuracy, nor the obvious left-leaning bias of most of its broadcasters…but blogs. Haven’t these people heard the warnings from one of the organizations that they hold in such high esteem -- the Occupational Safety and Health Administration -- regarding the tossing of inanimate missiles from the confines of one’s...

Looking back on election 2004, it's possible to see John Kerry's loss as a kind of modest electoral near-miracle -- if, that is, you think (as I do) that the Democratic Party has only a minimal reality. Who can doubt that the Republicans really are a party -- with all the usual divisions as well as cobbled-together constituencies with contradictory needs, desires, and agendas. Once upon a time, back in the 1940s, when the Republicans looked to be an out-of-power junior party for the foreseeable future, that might have been a good description of the lumpy New Deal Democrats. But...

December 17, 2004 Advocacy Groups Spent Record Amount on 2004 Election By MICHAEL JANOFSKY ASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - Advocacy groups supporting Senator John Kerry's presidential bid outspent those supporting President Bush's by more than three to one during the last election cycle, according to a new report by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan investigative organization. The report also showed that Republican groups narrowed the gap in the final three months of the campaign, a period in which groups like Swift Vets and P.O.W.'s for Truth proved effective in attacking Mr. Kerry and helping Mr. Bush win by...

Liberal activists are pondering how pro-Democratic advocacy groups, such as America Coming Together and MoveOn.org, exceeded their goal in turning out record numbers of voters on behalf of John Kerry yet still lost to George W. Bush. The answer is simple. While Democratic groups did a good job in mobilizing their base, the Republicans did a great job. The reasons for the GOP's success are mainly due to a better use of volunteers and a centralized, Party-based strategy that allowed for more effective coordination. To a significant extent, the Kerry campaign and the Democratic Party depended on "527" committees to...

WASHINGTON - Whatever the reasons John Kerry and the Democrats lost the race for the White House, lack of money wasn't one. Tax-exempt pro-Democratic groups raising big checks for this year's election collected almost twice as much money as their Republican rivals in the presidential race, a study shows. The financial advantage comes in addition to record fund raising by Kerry, the unsuccessful candidate, and the Democratic Party. In all, nonparty political groups, known as 527s because of the tax code section that covers them, raised about $534 million and spent roughly $544 million in the 2003-04 election cycle, the...

After the 2000 presidential campaign, strategists for President Bush came to a startling realization: Democrats watch more television than Republicans. So by buying millions of dollars' worth of television advertising time, Republicans were spending their money on audiences that tended to vote Democratic. What to do? With the luxury of four years until the next election, the Bush team examined voters' television-viewing habits and cross-referenced them with surveys of voters' political and lifestyle preferences. This led to an unusual step for a presidential campaign: it cut the proportion of money that it put into broadcast television and diverted more to...

Dec. 13 issue - In the closing weeks of the campaign, a reclusive Texas home builder pumped nearly $7 million into two "independent" political groups to help finance TV ads against John Kerry. The builder, Robert Perry of Houston, got attention in August when he gave $200,000 in seed money for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth—the so-called 527 group that attacked Kerry's war record. Campaign records examined by NEWSWEEK show that, in October alone, Perry gave $3.8 million more to the Swift Boat vets and $3 million to Progress for America, a separate 527 organized by a GOP consultant...

It is [said]... the only sure winner in American politics is the media.... Maybe not this time. Big Media lost big. But it was more than a loss. It was an abdication of authority. Large media institutions, such as CBS or the New York Times, have been regarded as nothing if not authoritative. In the Information Age, authority is a priceless franchise. But it is this franchise that Big Media, incredibly, has just thrown away. It did so by choosing to go into overt opposition to one party's candidate, a sitting president. It stooped to conquer... National Guard... Abu Ghraib......

[O]ne big loser was... McCain-Feingold campaign finance "reform".... Preliminary reports say a record $3.9 billion was spent on this year's Presidential and Congressional campaigns, 30% more than four years ago. Instead of severing the supposedly corrupting links between big money and politics, the reform's main effect has been merely to channel the cash through different political hands, and with less accountability. ...McCain-Feingold has succeeded in the narrow goal of staunching the flow of contributions from corporations, Big Labor and wealthy individuals to the two major political parties. Labor unions have turned more of their attention to voter registration and turnout....

2004 Cycle Large Donors to PoliticalMoneyLine's Key 527 Groups(excludes transfers) 1 . Soros, George $26,530,105 2 . Lewis, Peter B $23,147,220 3 . BING, STEPHEN L MR $13,952,682 4 . Sandler, Herbert M and Marion O $9,482,059 5 . Rappaport, Andrew & Deborah C $8,982,900 6 . PERRY, BOB J $8,090,000 7 . Service Employees Int'l Union $7,199,101 8 . AFL-CIO $6,972,796 9 . American Fedn of St Cty & Municipal Empls $6,870,700 10 . PICKENS, T BOONE MR $5,520,000 more...   2004 Cycle 527 Committees** 1 . Joint Victory Campaign 2004 $65,553,751 2 . ACT NOW PAC -...

I just answered the phone (unknown name/number) foolishly thinking it might be a poll (I've voted in every election over a lot of years and don't recall ever being polled). Instead, I received a totally inaccurate vmail message (I have also received others on my vmail over the past couple of weeks that are totally bogus regarding Republican candidates). This one was from New House Pac - address Washington, DC (the "other Washington"). I did a google search and found them, but haven't taken the time to read about them yet (saw Pelosi on another search), but know they are...

WASHINGTON - More wealthy donors are giving $1 million or more to partisan political organizations now than before a 2002 law took effect, aimed at removing big money from federal elections. The top giver is George Soros, the billionaire financier who jump-started pro-Democratic efforts to find a way to keep spending the unlimited checks the Democratic Party can no longer collect. Soros, who has given roughly $24 million to various groups opposing President Bush (news - web sites), said he donated so much to these so-called 527s to help the Democrats compete financially with Republicans. "I have to make the...

Earlier this afternoon I received an email in my private box from an organization that purported to be former Bush supporters who have "seen the light" and have decided to support John Kerry. The text of the email is as follows: A week ago, we sent you an email asking for help debunking anti-Bush documents. After receiving hundreds of responses, it become clear that all the documents were actually real: the Bush/Cheney DUIs, the Ken Lay letters, and even the bin Laden memo. For more information visit the documents page: http://www.yesbushcan.com/falsedocs.shtml We also received hundreds of emails from concerned...

In a 1974 burst of reformist zeal, the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to put in place strict limits on the amount of money individuals, PACs and even political parties could spend on campaigns. Such limitations, reformers argued, would make campaigns less expensive and less negative. Further, by removing the corrupting influence of money, the whole legislative process would magically become purer, fairer and wiser. The reformers could not have been more wrong. The 1974 reforms served (at first) as little more than an incumbent-protection scheme. Later, when the courts ruled that candidates could not be prohibited from spending their...

Led by labor unions, interest groups that can urge the public to elect or defeat candidates have poured at least $27 million into the presidential race since Labor Day, with Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry's backers outspending President Bush's by a ratio of more than 5-to-1. The efforts range from pro-Kerry hard-hat stickers handed out by the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades Political Action Together Political Committee to pro-Bush radio ads, funded by the National Right to Life political action committee, airing in every battleground state. Among the biggest spenders is the United Auto Workers PAC, which yesterday...

Liberal activist Norman Lear told me last week that if George W. Bush wins re-election, "watch what happens to real estate in New Zealand." He wasn't joking. Mr. Lear may have an exaggerated notion of the number of Americans with means to relocate to the other side of the globe. But he accurately reflects the intense feelings of a few who do: himself, financier George Soros, insurance executive Peter Lewis and Hollywood mogul Stephen Bing. Together, they have spent more than $50 million to register new voters and defeat President Bush. They are the X factor in this year's election:...

WASHINGTON -- RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie made the following statement today regarding a Democrat Party manual showing illegal coordination between the Kerry Campaign, the Florida Democrat Party and Democrat 527 shadow groups. Click here to read the manual. "Most people would be shocked to learn that the Florida Democrat Party has spent almost no dollars on federal election activity in the important battleground state of Florida.

  GEORGE SOROS:KERRY-DEMOCRAT PUPPETMASTER We are the only site on the web devoted exclusively to intellectual conservatism. We find the most intriguing information and bring it together on one page for you. HomeArticlesHeadlinesLinks we recommendFeedbackLink to usFree email updateAbout usWhat's New & InterestingMailing ListsIntellectual IconsSubmissions   The Dark Lord Sorosby A.M. Siriano 26 January 2004 What is embodied George Soros is the morphed spirit of the philosopher Karl Popper, who fostered and defined a politico-economic theory called Open Society.   Billionaire and ideologue George Soros, who came out of disembodied obscurity to popular recognition by vowing to unseat President Bush,...

McCain-Feingold Paved Way for 527s This was going to be the year -- thanks to the 2002 campaign finance law -- when big money lost its influence in American politics. But if the election comes down to which presidential candidate is better at getting supporters to the polls, the huge donations of a handful of wealthy liberals named Linda Pritzker, Stephen L. Bing, Peter B. Lewis and George Soros could determine the outcome. Together, they have given more than $26 million to help finance the most extensive get-out-the vote operation in history, the goal of which is to make John...