Soros says be patient ('massive investment in “startup” progressive think tanks')

George Soros told a carefully vetted gathering of 70 likeminded millionaires and billionaires last weekend that they must be patient if they want to realize long-term political and ideological yields from an expected massive investment in “startup” progressive think tanks.

The Scottsdale, Ariz., meeting, called to start the process of building an ideas production line for liberal politicians, began what organizers hope will be a long dialogue with the “partners,” many from the high-tech industry. Participants have begun to refer to themselves as the Phoenix Group.

Rob Stein, a veteran of President Bill Clinton’s Commerce Department and of New York investment banking, convened the meeting of venture capitalists, left-leaning moneymen and a select few D.C. strategists on how to seed pro-Democratic think tanks, media outlets and leadership schools to compete with such entrenched conservative institutions as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Leadership Institute.

Senior Democratic National Committee (DNC) officials were quietly briefed about the meeting in recent weeks. DNC Chairman Howard Dean was aware of it, in part though his friendship with Stein, but one senior DNC source said the organizers “kept that list [of attendees] kind of tight.”

Sarah Ingersoll, de facto spokeswoman for Stein’s Democracy Alliance, said it was “a very preliminary meeting of committed donors interested in building a community to support progressive infrastructure.”

The Democracy Alliance will act as a clearinghouse and is expected to channel much of its money to new organizations and existing ones such as John Podesta’s Center for American Progress and David Brock’s Media Matters for America.

The money details are several weeks away. “There aren’t dollar figures at this point,” Ingersoll said. Soros, a Hungarian-born financier who donated more than $23 million to pro-Democratic 527 groups last cycle, gave the main presentation, said Ingersoll, who declined to name the other presenters.

“Primarily, we’re looking at making recommendations and thinking through with these donors on how they can form an alliance,” she added. “This is about creating a network of individuals to share information to be effective in whatever they do going forward.”

Participants were tight-lipped, saying they wanted to keep media expectations low, even suggesting that the Scottsdale gathering was too insignificant to report. Other participants included former White House press secretary Mike McCurry and New Democrat Network president Simon Rosenberg. Andy Rappaport, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and reliable investor in liberal causes, did not attend the meeting, his spokeswomen said.

Ingersoll said funding transparency is a priority, which she said would contrast with some right-wing groups.

But transparency was not on display among the Scottsdale participants contacted by The Hill. Details of the meeting remained sparse.

Most of the participants had already seen Stein’s slick presentation titled “The Conservative Message Machine’s Money Matrix,” which lays out how right-leaning donors have funded and invested in organization that churn out conservative ideas. Stein unveiled his presentation at the Democratic National Convention in Boston last year, at an event hosted by Rosenberg and NDN.

Ingersoll denied that progressives are merely trying to replicate Heritage and Fox News.

Another source at the meeting said that it was important for existing progressive groups to coordinate their activities and to avoid the turf wars that have riven progressive causes in the past.

One source at the DNC with direct knowledge of the agenda said that the Phoenix Group had three specific goals at the outset. It wants to create liberal think tanks, training camps for young progressives and media centers.

Despite the general recognition that progressives are several years behind conservatives, liberal activists are confident that technology will help them close the gap. “Technology may allow us to do in a few years what it took the other side 40 years,” the DNC source said.

But the Phoenix Group is not beholden to the political calendar, and several sources insisted that four-year electoral exigencies were not motivating the project. Indeed, part of the reasoning in keeping D.C. consultants away from Scottsdale was to shield the high-tech donor base from political operatives, who are always eager for quick dollars to buy media points and fund direct mail.

George Soros told a carefully vetted gathering of 70 likeminded millionaires and billionaires

SNIP

Participants have begun to refer to themselves as the Phoenix Group.

Is there a list of the members of the Phoenix Group or the 70 participants in this conference somewhere? The article mentions Rob Stein and Sarah Ingersoll, Mike McCurry, and Simon Rosenberg. Here's a bit more I've found through a few quick searches (below is mentioned a July 2004 New York Times Magazine profile I have not yet been able to find which may have more information):

Wiring the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy

Andy Rappaport made his millions as a venture capitalist,searching out what he calls ''ideas that change the world.''. . .Actually, Rappaport says he may be on to an answer. Last summer, he got a call from Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, a fund-raising and advocacy group in Washington. Would Rappaport mind sitting down for a confidential meeting with a veteran Democratic operative named Rob Stein?. . .In March of this year, Rappaport convened a meeting of wealthy Democrats at a Silicon Valley hotel so that they, too, could see Stein's presentation. Similar gatherings were already under way in Washington and New York, where the meetings included two of the most generous billionaires in the Democratic universe -- the financier George Soros and Peter Lewis, an Ohio insurance tycoon -- as well as Soros's son and Lewis's son. On the East Coast, the participants had begun referring to themselves as the Phoenix Group, as in rising from the ashes; Rappaport called his gathering the Band of Progressives. More recently, companion groups have come together in Boston and Los Angeles. . .In the spring of 2003, a friend Stein knew from the Clinton White House arranged for him to meet Simon Rosenberg at the New Democrat Network. Ambitious and hyperarticulate, Rosenberg once worked for the Democratic Leadership Council, the centrist group that laid the groundwork for Clinton's '92 campaign, before splitting off and forming his own political-action committee in 1996. . .He talked to donors around the country, like Andy Rappaport, who were angry at the Clintonesque rhetoric that obscured the sharp ideological divide between them and the Rush Limbaugh right; they were desperate for new policy ideas and for a more aggressive, coherent strategy. Rosenberg had hired a Silicon Valley consulting firm to suggest ways for the New Democrat Network to find a niche in this new world. One recommendation, which Rosenberg embraced, was to bring together a group of progressive contributors to talk about financing new kinds of ventures outside the party structure. It was Erica Payne, his New York director, who put a name to the fledgling project: the Phoenix Group. . .Rosenberg introduced Stein to Payne, his New York director, who in turn hounded Alan Patricof, the 69-year-old venture capitalist, until he agreed to hold a few screenings of the slide show. . .In Silicon Valley, Rappaport began to hold regular meetings, drawing crowds of 80 or more, and he and his wife flew into New York to attend a session there as well. In Washington, Bren Simon, an Indianapolis-based donor to Democratic causes, brought together a Phoenix Group meeting. Last month, Chris Gabrieli, another major contributor, held his first showing of Stein's presentation for financial executives and dot-com types in Boston, with Jonathan Soros as the star attraction. In Los Angeles, the director and activist Rob Reiner helped set up a chapter for Hollywood liberals, too. . . New Democratic Network/Phoenix Group website @ http://www.newdem.org/

About NDN [New Democratic Network]

NDN is led by President and Founder Simon Rosenberg. Mr. Rosenberg has nearly 20 years of political and media experience, including work as a television news writer and producer and a political strategist for the Dukakis and Clinton Presidential campaigns, the Democratic National Committee, and the Democratic Leadership Council. NDN's management team includes Vice President of Development Allison Griner, Vice President for Communications Gil Meneses, Vice President of Policy Cynthia Rice, and Vice President of Operations Buck Owen. . .NDN receives important counsel from leading New Democrat thinkers and strategists who form NDN's Advisory Board. These Advisory Board members include former White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty; former White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry; former U.S. Representatives Vic Fazio, who was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Dave McCurdy, who was the Democratic Leadership Council chairman; former Dallas Mayor and 2002 Texas Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Ron Kirk; former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew; former Federal Trade Commissioner Christine Varney; economist and former Under Secretary of Commerce Robert Shapiro; economic and family policy expert Karen Kornbluh, a former Treasury and Federal Communications Commission official; former Commerce Department Chief of Staff and private equity investor Rob Stein; pollster and Latino electorate expert Sergio Bendixen; Founding Partner and Managing Director of the Westin Rinehart Group Morris Reid and Internet pioneer and political strategist Jonah Seiger.

Joe Conason, "The Kerry juggernaut", 7/30/2004

As explained in a New York Times magazine profile last Sunday, the Phoenix Group and kindred informal committees across the country are planning to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to create a powerful new institutional matrix for progressive Democrats. . .At the Royal Sonesta, meanwhile, the labor, minority and community organizations gathered behind the banner of the Campaign for America's Future and Progressive Majority, were laying their own plans. . .Wealthy leaders of the Phoenix Group, such as George Soros and Peter Lewis, have been providing millions of dollars for independent grass-roots activity under the aegis of America Coming Together. . .Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future. . .

"Billionaires Secretly Met in Aspen to Defeat Bush" 10/19/2004

Apparently the leader of the secret cabal is billionaire Peter B. Lewis, chairman of the Cleveland, Ohio-based insurance company Progressive Corporation. . .Another billionaire who attended was John Sperling, founder of the online University of Phoenix. Also present were Herb and Marion Sandler from California. The couple founded Golden West Financial Corporation, a California bank reportedly worth $17 billion. . .the group even needed some cheerleading from Harold Ickes, a former top aide to Bill Clinton who is involved in the 527 efforts.

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