>>>Ingersoll denied that progressives are merely trying to replicate Heritage and Fox News.
Replicate? I take this as a declaration of war.
They want to enter a discrediting mud sling battle.
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.