Posted on 12/12/2003 3:21:38 PM PST by MegaSilver
For those who think that there is too much money in politics (and think most of it is Republican) there is just one word -- Soros. That is George Soros, the left-wing radical billionaire who has pledged to personally spend tens of millions of dollars to try to unseat George Bush in 2004. Defeating the Bush administration -- which he recklessly likened to Nazis and communists -- has become an obsessive focus of Soros life.
His recent $10 million contribution to the new Democrat activist group America Coming Together was the largest single donation from an individual in history. Soros has thus made himself a real power broker behind the Democratic Party. This has some political analysts concerned because Soros is not your average liberal Democrat. He's a powerful, extremist megalomaniac.
The Hungarian-born Soros, known as the ''Man who broke the Bank of England'' through his currency speculation, claims to be driven by ''delusions of grandeur.'' He has said that his ''goal is to become the conscience of the world'' and that he fancies himself ``some kind of God or an economic reformer like Keynes, or even better, like Einstein.''
Ironically, the Democratic Party is now using billionaires like Soros to pump millions of dollars of soft money into new ''independent political groups'' as a way to circumvent the spirit of the recent campaign-finance reform law that they fought so hard to pass.
SOFT MONEY
The McCain-Feingold law (in effect immediately after the 2002 elections) was intended to ban unregulated ''soft money'' in political campaigns. This unlimited cash was funneled to political parties, not specific candidate campaigns. While it had no limits, it was accountable.
Yet Democrats considered this ''big special-interest'' money corrosive to the political process. Meanwhile, ''hard money'' refers to the regulated donations given directly to candidates, donations now capped at $2,000 per individual and required to be disclosed immediately. Now the Democratic Party prefers funneling new unlimited soft money into a slew of groups with no accountability.
Hypocritically, Soros also reportedly spent upwards of $15 million to help pass McCain-Feingold. His Open Society Institute has given large grants totaling nearly $7 million to groups such as Common Cause, Public Campaign and Center for Public Integrity with the stated goal to ``dramatically reduce the role of big special-interest money in American politics.''
But Soros has his own big special interests. He has been accused of ''destabilizing world currencies and wrecking the economies of nations.'' A French court found him guilty of insider trading and fined him $2.3 million in 2002. He has been called the ''Daddy Warbucks'' of drug legalization, spending more than $15 million initiatives pushing the issue.
BIG DONATIONS
Soros is not the only billionaire Democrat financier. Peter Lewis, chairman of the aptly named Progressive auto-insurance company appears to be matching Soros dollar for dollar. Lewis recently pledged $10 million to Americans Coming Together and matched a $2.5 million Soros pledge to the far-left group MoveOn.org.
MoveOn.org is so far left it opposed any U.S. military response after the terror attacks of 9/11, asking instead for a ``peaceful response to break the cycle of violence.''
Meanwhile, Steve Kirsch, who made his fortune when he sold his Internet company, Infoseek, to Disney also plans to jump on the anti-Bush, big-money bandwagon by giving heavily to groups such as MoveOn.org. Kirsch has already donated nearly $10 million to the Democrats.
Though Republicans opposed McCain-Feingold, and have raised considerable sums in legal hard money, they generally have been following both the letter and the spirit of the law banning soft money.
Until now, there was no GOP equivalent to the deliberate Democratic effort at undermining the new campaign-finance laws. Sadly, the Democrats have now taken the idea of ''big special-interest'' money in politics to a whole new level.
I only found out about that a few days ago. I had always wondered why they called it "Progressive" Auto Insurance.
I wonder if anyone would patronize me if I started a company called Tory Auto Insurance...
Because calling it "Radical Leftist Auto Insurance" would be a dead giveaway.
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