Free Republic

When Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton needed help rounding up superdelegates, she turned to Harold M. Ickes, the ultimate Democratic fixer, ... ... Mr. Ickes is also wearing another hat. He is president of Catalist, a for-profit databank that has sold its voter files to the Obama and the Clinton presidential campaigns for their get-out-the-vote efforts. With his equity stake in the firm, Mr. Ickes stands to benefit financially no matter which candidate becomes the Democratic nominee. In creating Catalist, Mr. Ickes, ... has formed a rare entity on the political scene, a for-profit limited-liability corporation that allows wealthy Democratic donors...

WASHINGTON - A union-financed advocacy group that played a major role in the 2004 elections has agreed to pay a $580,000 fine after the Federal Election Commission concluded it illegally ran advertising against President Bush and in favor of Democrat John Kerry. In an agreement announced Monday, the FEC said the now inactive Media Fund spent $53.4 million during the contest on television, radio and newspaper ads and direct mail that made reference to Bush or Kerry. The FEC said the fund violated campaign finance laws because it accepted unlimited donations from labor unions and expressly advocated the defeat or...

George Soros is an exacting  taskmaster. In return for his money, he demands productivity. What he requires of employees and business associates in the investment world, Soros also demands from the political operatives he funds. “Mr. Soros isn't just writing checks and watching,” notes Wall Street Journalreporter Jeanne Cummings. “He is also imposing a business model on the notoriously unruly world of politics. He demands objective evidence of progress, and assigned an aide to monitor the groups he supports. He studies private polls to track the impact of an anti-Bush advertising campaign, and he is delivering his money in installments,...

ACT and the Media Fund were born over dinner conversation at a restaurant on Dupont Circle ... What emerged was a plan to tap large donors using so-called 527 committees that, unlike candidates or political parties, are allowed to collect unlimited contributions. ACT and the Media Fund raised enough money to alarm Republicans, who initially tried to fight the use of 527 groups through legal challenges. When the Federal Election Commission declined to pass tough regulations, Republicans turned to groups of their own. The largest, Progress for America, raised almost $45 million in a matter of weeks to support Mr....

WASHINGTON - Upset by the millions of dollars that outside groups spent in the 2004 election, a House panel on Wednesday took a step toward limiting such organizations. The House Administration Committee, on a 5-3 vote, sent a bill to the full House that would place tax-exempt partisan groups under the same fundraising and spending limits that apply to political action committees. The House is expected to act on the legislation sponsored by Reps. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Martin Meehan, D-Mass., next month. In the last election, the groups, commonly known as 527s for the section of the tax law...

Billionaire investor George Soros, the biggest financial contributor to the failed effort to defeat President George W. Bush in November's election, said Democratic challenger John Kerry was a flawed candidate. Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC, spent $26 million in last year's campaign that he said was undermined by the candidate he supported. "Kerry did not, actually, offer a credible and coherent alternative," Soros, 74, said yesterday in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "That had a lot to do with Bush being re-elected." The comments by the Hungarian-born Soros marked his sharpest criticism of...

WASHINGTON - Whatever the reasons John Kerry and the Democrats lost the race for the White House, lack of money wasn't one. Tax-exempt pro-Democratic groups raising big checks for this year's election collected almost twice as much money as their Republican rivals in the presidential race, a study shows. The financial advantage comes in addition to record fund raising by Kerry, the unsuccessful candidate, and the Democratic Party. In all, nonparty political groups, known as 527s because of the tax code section that covers them, raised about $534 million and spent roughly $544 million in the 2003-04 election cycle, the...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 - The McCain-Feingold law, which did more to change how American political campaigns are financed than any legislation since the 1970's, got its first real-world test in this year's election. And now its critics are more emphatic than ever in arguing that the law has fallen short of its goals, and even some supporters are calling for revisions. The 2002 law demolished the system that for more than a decade had allowed political parties to feed on unlimited soft-money contributions from companies, labor unions and donors. But what rose in its place remains the subject of fierce...

[O]ne big loser was... McCain-Feingold campaign finance "reform".... Preliminary reports say a record $3.9 billion was spent on this year's Presidential and Congressional campaigns, 30% more than four years ago. Instead of severing the supposedly corrupting links between big money and politics, the reform's main effect has been merely to channel the cash through different political hands, and with less accountability. ...McCain-Feingold has succeeded in the narrow goal of staunching the flow of contributions from corporations, Big Labor and wealthy individuals to the two major political parties. Labor unions have turned more of their attention to voter registration and turnout....

I just heard an ad on the radio by the so-called 'Media Fund' that repeats the Michael Moore lie that the Bush administration allowed the Bin Laden family to leave America while commercial airlines were still grounded. It appears the pathological liars on the left are not restricted to John Kerry, John Edwards, Dan Rather, Terry McAuliffe, George Soros, Lawrence O'Donnell, and Michael Moore.

I have been listening to Rush, I am in Central Ohio. Every break our local news is running an ad by The Media Fund and it is incredible. Stating as fact that "In the middle of the night, while no other planes were flying Bush called planes in to carry the BinLaden family safely out of the US. They could have given information as to Osama's whereabouts, now we will never know, etc., etc." Is this just running in Ohio or have others heard it. It is unbelievable.

Just talked to Tom Griesdorn the GM of WBNS TV in Columbus. He told me that it was my just my opinion that the Media Fund Ad is a lie. I need your help. Please call him. His telephone number 614.460.3700.

The Shadow Party: Part I By David Horowitz and Richard Poe FrontPageMagazine.com | October 6, 2004 Part 1: Origins "My family is more important to me than my party," declared Senator Zell Miller, a Georgia Democrat, as he spoke from the podium of the Republican National Convention on September 1. "There is but one man to whom I am willing to entrust their future and that man's name is George Bush." [1] Many Democrats howled in outrage at Miller's "betrayal" - former President Jimmy Carter in particular. In an angry personal letter to the Georgia senator, Carter accused Miller of...

Pollster Frank Luntz is crying foul after MSNBC canceled his long-scheduled focus group two days before the debate. Luntz, who is under contract to MSNBC, had already spent $30,000 on recruits for several focus groups and invited reporters in Florida to watch -- only to be told that the network didn't want to declare a winner in the debate. "I think they buckled to political pressure," says Luntz, who has advised Republicans from Newt Gingrich to Rudy Giuliani but says he's done no GOP work since 2001. "They caved. . . . Why is it that Democrats are allowed to...

For the past two days Glenn Beck has been playing an anti-Bush Media Fund radio ad that makes reference to Bush's position that the admissions policies at the University of Michigan discriminated against whites and makes a snide comment about Bush "guarding Alabama" instead of going to VietNam. It was the most blatant race baiting thing I've ever heard. I've been killing myself trying to track it down on the web and I cannot find it anywhere. Does anyone have a link to a clip of this ad, or at least a transcript of it?

Personally received a phone call here in Saint Louis area from the Media Fund. (527 against Bush) The recorded message was how the Bush family was tied to the Saudis and is repressing documents from the 9/11 report. They gave a link to their website BushandSaudis.com. This link just takes you to the media funds website. I have the entire message on my answering machine. There is no direct reference to who they are. I thought Missouri was off the campaign list for Kerry, or is he leaving the advertising to 527 smear tactics?

Ad Renews Charges of Bush-Saudi Ties By Howard Kurtz Friday, September 24, 2004; Page A07 Charges of excessive coziness between the Bush family and the Saudis, last seen in theaters during "Fahrenheit 9/11," have made it to the small screen. Two new ads from the Media Fund, a liberal advocacy group, question whether the president's family and the "wealthy," "powerful" and "corrupt" royal family in Riyadh are "too close for comfort." Admaker Steve McMahon says the effort is to tie Bush to a country that has some religious schools teaching anti-Americanism and is at least partly responsible for $2-a-gallon gasoline....

Mrs. Heinz-Kerry and her connection to The Tides Foundation is not ‘new‘ news. The Tides Foundation’s connection to moveon.org isn’t breaking news, either. Nor is moveon.org’s connection to Texans for Truth. What is lesser known is the Communist Party’s willingness to back Kerry in this election. They’ve encouraged their members to vote for him instead of their own candidate. Their sole reason? Getting rid of President Bush. The W.W.W.P. (The Socialist Party) openly brags of infiltrating the unions. They brag about having Party members placed in positions to negotiate contracts for union memberships. Many of the people who give money...

A liberal group backing John F. Kerry is accusing President Bush of opposing civil rights and trying to suppress black voter turnout in a multimillion-dollar ad campaign targeted at young African Americans. The Media Fund, a "527" independent group that has poured $43 million into anti-Bush advertising, plans to air the new television and radio spots in major urban markets in swing states. (The "527" reference is to the section of the tax code that governs such organizations.) "It's a sharper message, an edgier message," fund spokesman Jim Jordan said. "We're looking for voters who haven't been particularly motivated by...

ISSUE 4 "We have to find a way not to have the politics that looks for the lowest common denominator, but one that reaches for the highest common denominator …"  Sen. John Kerry, Speech To The American Legion National Convention, Nashville, TN, 9/1/04KERRY'S COMMON DENOMINATOR___________________________________________________________________HIGHEST OR LOWEST? Sen. John Edwards (D-NC):   "This administration is at war with working people."  (David N. Goodman, "Edwards Rallies Union Members For Democratic Ticket," The Associated Press, 9/12/04)DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe:  "If you lie about your military record, you lie about creating jobs. You lie about the deficit. You lie about fully funding education. You...