Democrats Amass $250 Million -- Create Fund-Raising Monster

Newsmax.com ^ | Thursday, Sept. 18, 2003 | Carl Limbacher Jr.

[jmstein7]

Democrats Amass $250 Million -- Create Fund-Raising Monster Carl Limbacher Jr. Thursday, Sept. 18, 2003 Imagine a political organization with more than $250 million in the bank, a fine-tuned direct-mail operation, some of the best political minds in the country, and legions of volunteers at the ready. This, BusinessWeek says, is the Democrats' plan to take the White House in 2004 using a group named "America Votes."

The magazine says this new supra-political organization will be so powerful, so rich, it could even replace the Democratic National Committee.

Its funding, well under way with a quarter of a billion dollars in the bank, may well surpass President Bush's formidable re-election campaign chest.

And even some Washington insiders suggest the monumental fund-raising operation is nothing more than a "Hillary for President" finance committee in waiting.

Soft Money Hard to Find

The McCain-Feingold campaign finance "reforms" that Democrats howled for have dampened their advantage in to raising soft money.

Hence, in a desperate bid to defeat President Bush next year, Democratic Party operatives have been working overtime creating a "shadow party" to camouflage efforts to raise campaign cash banned by the very act they lobbied for.

America Votes is the party's new umbrella group, and has been described as a confederacy of leftist causes that is mobilizing to keep the banned soft money flowing.

"America Votes pulls together some 20 progressive interests in a kind of shadow party," the magazine reports. The organization's founders include AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Gregory T. Moore, executive director of NAACP National Voter Fund.

Plans are in the works for America Votes to share polling data, research and mailing lists among member groups, including the Democratic National Committee's massive voter data bank known as "Demzilla."

Each member group is expected to contribute $50,000 to hire coordinators in as many as 17 key swing states.

The massive effort to pull an end run around McCain-Feingold is particularly ironic, say observers, because campaign finance "reform" was a cause celebre only last year among Democrats and vigorously opposed by most Republicans.

Behind closed doors, however, party heavyweights such as Sen. Hillary Clinton were privately warning that McCain-Feingold would doom the Dems' next presidential candidate.

According to press accounts in July 2002, Clinton "screamed" at the act's sponsor, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., complaining that the legislation would force Democrats to choose between running underfunded campaigns or risk going to jail.

'America Votes' Negates McCain-Feingold

Now Sen. Feingold tells BusinessWeek that America Votes threatens to "render our efforts really meaningless," because candidates are still likely to know where the big money comes from and will look to reward their benefactors just as before.

But with President Bush raising hard money hand-over-fist in smaller dollar amounts that comply with the law, Democrats now realize they've trapped themselves.

Whereas Bush is so successful raising money that he's expected to waive federal matching funds as he did in 2000 for next year's campaign, the Democratic National Committee is scrambling to find ways to generate the kind of big bucks that used to come from fat cats such as TV mogul Haim Saban and billionairess party girl Denise Rich.

One longtime Clinton supporter has already answered the call.

According to BusinessWeek and Canada's National Post, Democrat Daddy Warbucks George Soros plans to kick in $10 million to the America Votes political action committee, Americans Coming Together (ACT).

ACT itself will have its own mega-budget separate from America Votes, with plans to spend an additional $75 million by Election Day 2004.

"The current set of reforms give an advantage to the Republicans," complains the politically active billionaire, who donated millions of dollars to Democrats in the era before McCain-Feingold.

Clinton Cronies Chipping In

While Soros is busy pouring cash into ACT, former Clinton White House deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes has also swung into action.

A veteran of the 1996 Clinton campaign finance "reform" scandal who was credited with the idea of renting out the Lincoln Bedroom, Ickes boasted to the Washington Post in August about his plans to exploit loopholes in McCain-Feingold. He said sarcastically, "Welcome to campaign finance reform."

One soft-money fund planned by Ickes will raise cash for ads on Democrat issues that focus on the presidency, the Post said. "Those of us who know about it just refer to it as the 'media fund,'" he told the paper cryptically.

Because Ickes masterminded Sen. Clinton's successful campaign strategy in 2000, some see his involvement in the Dems' latest subterfuge as a harbinger of things to come.

"With Harold Ickes doing the fund-raising and Terry McAuliffe running the Democratic National Committee, Hillary is in possession of all the levers of power should she decide to run in 2004," former Clinton campaign strategist Dick Morris told NewsMax. "This certainly looks like she's at least considering a run in 2004."

[Blood of Tyrants]

So much for keeping "big money" out of politics.

[Guillermo]

Was there really any dount that they'd do this??

They may be scum, but they're not stupid.

[LOC1]

Now is the time for John McCain to enforce his bill.

[blackdog]

$250 million buys a lot of dead votes, dog votes, pound the stack of punchcards with a hammer and nail votes, carton o'smokes votes, nursing home votes, mental patient votes, and about one third of Mexico's votes.

[dasboot]

Hostile takeover by the biggest mob in the world. "We will bury you."

[Ingtar]

Let me get this straight. "Money in politics is bad. We need to pass McCain - Feingold to get the money out of politics." Then they turn around and find a new way to skirt their own law and collect even more money?

[blackdog]

Waaaaassssup on our Brazilian prison tourist? He's getting coverage like the "Verboten" order has been issued.

[blackdog]

And you believed them????BBBWWWAAAHHAAAAA!

[Arkie2]

Don't tell me you're surprised? Don't expect the media to call them on it either.

[bayourod]

Just another anti-Bush Newsmax article. I guess now we're supposed to think that Bush can't possibly win reelection so why waste our money and efforts supporting him. When is Newsmax going to publicly disclose who their anti-Bush daddy Warbucks is? I'd believe "The Onion" before Newsmax.

[Steve_Seattle]

This is why "campaign finance reform" is such a joke. No matter what the laws are, they will find ways around them to keep the money flowing, and most of the money is coming from the same pockets as before. All CFR does is make the process more fake, more Byzantine, more dependent upon lawyers, and harder to prosecute because harder to figure out what's going on and how the money is actually flowing. It's basically a huge money-laundering scheme.

[CasearianDaoist]

You wonder if the rest of the party will stand for it in the long term - it is really looks like the CLintons are forming their own political party.

[playball0]

The solution to all this is rather simple. Just get a good enough excuse to attach their accounts (let's start with fraud, intent to subvert McCain-Feingold, etc.) and tie up the Dims from spending it until it's too late.

[jmstein7]

Okay... but who has standing?

[Dark Wing]

I will believe this when I see it.

[f.Christian]

... bin hillary --- (( carvile says the way to the white house is via irag ? ? ? ))

... gore --- (( day jah view... mine ahead --- flashbacks ))

[A Broken Glass Republican]

Agreed. NewsMax is a joke. I don't even believe this article.