The Empire Strikes Back (Interview with Byron York)

The American Enterprise ^ | July/August 2005 | Karlyn H. Bowman / Byron York

[Valin]

In Campaign 2004, liberal activists mobilized to an unprecedented degree, creating brand-new behemoth political action organizations and injecting more money into liberal candidacies and causes than had ever been spent before in any election. These developments are analyzed in a readable new book by National Review White House correspondent Byron York titled The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President—and Why They’ll Try Even Harder Next Time. TAE’s Karlyn Bowman recently sat down with York. Following are excerpts from their conversation.

TAE: When she was First Lady, Hillary Clinton complained of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” out to get her and her husband. What is the “vast left-wing conspiracy” you refer to in your book?

York: The book is about organizations and people like Michael Moore, MoveOn.org, George Soros, and America Coming Together—groups and individuals who came together quite self-consciously, and, in a coordinated way, to create a new political movement aimed at defeating George Bush. They became a Democratic party outside the real Democratic party. They are now continuing to campaign by other means.

TAE: What motivated them?

York: Several things. Anger dating back to the Clinton impeachment. The 2000 election outcome. The Iraq war. After a while, many of these people were simply angry about the look on George Bush’s face.

But the professionals in these groups, the long-time liberal partisans who ran America Coming Together and the new think tank the Center for American Progress, were motivated more by desperation. They realized after the 2002 election that Democrats controlled nothing in Washington. They had to find a way to win, and win fast.

TAE: What did America Coming Together and MoveOn.org actually do in the campaign? And how much did they spend?

York: ACT, with its sister organization, the Media Fund, raised and spent about $200 million in the campaign. The Media Fund spent all of its money on radio, television, and Internet advertising for Democratic candidates.

MoveOn.org was originally started by non-professionals who didn’t have a lot of experience in politics. A couple of software entrepreneurs from Berkeley, California founded it in 1998 to stop the Clinton impeachment, and then used it to punish those who tried to impeach the President. Neither of those efforts worked. By 2001, they found themselves without a purpose in life. After 9/11 they found a new purpose: opposing many aspects of the war on terrorism.

Unlike most Americans, they opposed even the war in Afghanistan. Then they poured money into opposing the war in Iraq. They pioneered new ways of raising money on the Internet. Some of their money came from big donors such as George Soros and Peter Lewis, but a lot more came from people they organized on the Internet. They had 3 million members whom they could call on quickly for new money to, for example, air an ad against George Bush or against the Swift Boat veterans. They created a new political organization independent of the Washington power structure.

TAE: How do the amounts of money they raised and spent compare to previous campaigns?

York: The amounts of money spent by individuals in 2004 was astonishing. In 1972, a close friend of Richard Nixon, W. Clement Stone, gave $2 million to Nixon’s campaign. That was legal at the time, but it so scandalized observers that it became Exhibit A for the campaign finance reform legislation of 1974. If you adjust that amount for inflation, Stone’s contribution would be $8 million today.

Well, George Soros spent $27 million opposing Bush in the 2004 race. Just five people (Soros, Peter Lewis, Steven Bing, and Herb and Marion Sandler) spent $78 million trying to defeat Bush. These amounts are unprecedented, and they are far more than the big donors on the Republican side spent. Together, the top five Republican contributors spent $25 million, or a third of what the top Democrats spent.

TAE: What effect did Michael Moore’s movie Fahrenheit 9/11 have?

York: When Fahrenheit 9/11 came out, Michael Moore said repeatedly that it was playing as the biggest movie in Red State America. He was suggesting that a lot of people who had voted for George W. Bush in 2000 saw the movie and changed their minds. He was trying to sell the perception of a wave of anti-Bush anger sweeping the country, with Fahrenheit 9/11 at the leading edge of it. This point was repeated uncritically in the press, and many people on the left believed it.

While researching my book, I found a source in Hollywood who had access to confidential audience measurement statistics that studios compile. This information enabled me to see in which markets the film did better than might be expected, and where it did worse. The truth turns out to be that the movie did well in deep Blue areas such as Boston and San Francisco. It did extremely well in Canada—in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. But in the Red areas of the U.S. like Texas and most of California, it underperformed. It also did poorly in swing states. It underperformed expectations by 40 percent in Tampa and Orlando, Florida, and it underperformed in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio.

So the reality was much different from what we were told at the time. The movie did make $120 million, a record for a documentary film. But most of that came from the pockets of the faithful, not converts. It did not change minds as Moore claimed.

TAE: Another aspect of the left-wing media strategy was the new liberal talk radio network Air America. How successful was it?

York: Air America has struggled since its founding. For a long time, the Left has been mystified that it has not achieved any success on talk radio. They look at Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and others and ask why they haven’t been able to match that success. They tried with former New York governor Mario Cuomo and Texas politico Jim Hightower. They came to the belief that their individual shows always failed because they were sandwiched between conservative shows. So they decided they needed to form an independent network.

But this proved more difficult than they thought. Air America was a beneficiary of good publicity early on. They went on the air on March 31, 2004, in five of 285 radio markets. Now they are on the air in 50 to 60 markets. But a lot of the stations are small and weak.

It is very hard to compare ratings of Al Franken and Rush Limbaugh on a national basis, but you can do it in some areas. Air America did well in the first two quarters of 2004 in New York City, which might have been expected. But they still lost to Limbaugh in the Big Apple. So they are still struggling. They have two kinds of investors—those who are investing in them as a business, and those who are investing in them as a cause. As long as people continue to pour money in, they can go on.

TAE: With all the manpower and money they had, why wasn’t the vast left-wing conspiracy successful?

York: John Kerry had a lot to do with it. He was unable to find a convincing and strong message on the war on terror and the war in Iraq. The 2004 campaign showed that you can pour zillions of dollars into a campaign, but that you cannot make up for the deficiencies of a candidate.

On the other hand, a number of people, including Michael Moore and the folks at America Coming Together, say they prevented a Bush landslide. That may be true. It is also true, certainly in the case of ACT, that they built something—a voter turnout machine—that can be used next time, when they may have a better candidate, and maybe the other guys have a worse candidate.

TAE: Did they change politics fundamentally? And what’s ahead for these groups and individuals?

York: These groups and individuals changed politics in important ways. They organized large numbers of true believers. They raised historic amounts of money. Michael Moore showed what enormous publicity a political movie can get in the middle of a campaign.

After the election, these activists took a look at themselves and asked what they should do now. They came to the conclusion that they needed to do more of the same. That’s what people generally do in a situation like this. No one likes to examine himself too closely. So they will turn the same handle another crank.

Their biggest chance is for the Republicans to stumble. Which they obviously could. Political conditions in the country can change. The war on terror could recede in importance, which would favor the Left. People could become tired of Republicans and decide it is time for a change. If that happens, these new highly ideological groups are perfectly positioned to take advantage.

Published in Nip It Now July/August 2005

[NaughtiusMaximus]

Here in Flagstaff, Arizona, a virulent blue dot in a red state, the hoopleheads are still driving around with their stupid Kerry bumperstickers.

[Valin]

hoopleheads, I love it!

[Alia]

BTTT