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<p>The Republican National Committee plans to ask the Federal Election Commission today to ban the raising of $300 million or more in "soft money" by pro-Democratic groups seeking to pay for voter mobilization and TV ads in this year's elections.</p>

For those who think that there is too much money in politics (and think most of it is Republican) there is just one word -- Soros. That is George Soros, the left-wing radical billionaire who has pledged to personally spend tens of millions of dollars to try to unseat George Bush in 2004. Defeating the Bush administration -- which he recklessly likened to Nazis and communists -- has become an obsessive focus of Soros life. His recent $10 million contribution to the new Democrat activist group America Coming Together was the largest single donation from an individual in history. Soros...

<p>WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court's affirmation of campaign-finance reform is sending California Democrats to the Internet and Republicans to see how state money- raising laws can help them fill the gap the ban on soft money is going to create.</p>

<p>November 25, 2003 -- THE Democratic Party is being replaced by a new group called "Americans Coming Together," which has been launched with two $10 million donations from financier George Soros and Peter B. Lewis, chairman of the Progressive Corporation. The new organization wants to raise $94 million to finance a massive campaign against Bush - all with soft money. The Democratic Party, which is only allowed to raise hard money (donations limited to $2,000 per person) by the McCain-Feingold law is unable to amass the resources necessary for a national campaign, so it is ceding the main role to Americans Coming Together.</p>

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 — Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic National Committee chairman, found himself under the disco lights at a dance-club fund-raiser one recent evening. The total raised from 4,400 donors was about $250,000. It was a blunt contrast to three years ago, when the chairman stood with President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and more than 13,000 Democratic supporters in Washington's convention center. The take that night was $26.5 million. "It's a whole different world today," Mr. McAuliffe said. Democrats provided most of the backing for last year's campaign finance law, which bars national political parties from taking unlimited...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Billionaire George Soros has opened his wallet to try to elect a Democratic president. Liberal activist Norman Lear is trying to register new voters. And one of President Bush's recount lawyers is forming a group to spend big checks to help Bush win a new term. A year from the election, people both for and against Bush are raising millions of dollars to try to affect the race's outcome, despite a ban on the use of corporate, union and unlimited contributions to influence federal elections. "We were never for the soft money limits in the first place,"...

WASHINGTON (AP) — One of President Bush's lawyers during the 2000 Florida recount is creating a group to spend millions advocating Bush's re-election, hoping to counter efforts by billionaire George Soros and others to help Democrats capture the White House. Attorney George Terwilliger and Republican political consultants Frank Donatelli and Craig Shirley are asking the Federal Election Commission for advice on whether their plan is legal under the new campaign finance law, according to a copy of the letter. The law bars the use of so-called soft money — corporate, union and unlimited contributions — in connection with federal elections....

GOP fears $420M avalanche By Hans Nichols Republicans fear left-leaning advocacy groups will raise up to $420 million in unregulated contributions, the kind of soft money that the 2002 McCain-Feingold law prevents the parties themselves from collecting. While Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie questioned the legality of pledges from wealthy donors like George Soros and Peter Lewis who advocate the defeat of President Bush, Republican groups will use those high numbers to galvanize their own soft money base. Gillespie told reporters in a conference call yesterday that he was unaware of any Republican groups that are “prepared to spend...

<p>Republicans worry that President Bush may not be able to fill his re-election fund with anything close to what Democrats are raising to defeat him next year, thanks to a loophole in the campaign finance law.</p> <p>"The Sierra Club, the AFL-CIO, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, MoveOn.org and America Coming Together are raising up to $421 million to spend on the presidential election next year," Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie wrote last week to former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, in a letter urging the leading Democratic candidate to take a stand against the flood of unregulated "soft money" contributions.</p>

Last June, the billionaire investor George Soros announced that he was cutting back the work his foundation, the Open Society Institute, did in Russia so that he could focus his attention on the United States. The change was needed, Soros told reporters in Moscow, because the political scene in America had become "quite dangerous." In the Bush administration, Soros explained, "the executive branch has come under the influence of a group of ideologues who have forgotten the first principle of an open society: that they don't have a monopoly on truth." Soros, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Hungary, said...

<p>With less than three months to go before the Iowa caucuses, the Democratic candidates are frantically trying to fill their coffers in order to fund the TV ads that will air in January and February in the early states. President Bush, meanwhile, is laughing all the way to the bank.</p>

Ken Mehlman Campaign Manager Bush-Cheney '04 September 29, 2003 Dear XXXXX, Last week, I warned you that liberal special interests had pledged to spend over $400 million to defeat President Bush. Join this campaign by making your contribution of $2,000, $1,000, $500, or even $250 or $100 today! Since my message to you, the Washington Post has revealed that these liberal groups have already raised over $185 million of their $400 million goal. They have already begun spending it on ads to defeat our President. http://www.GeorgeWBush.com/SupportOurPresident/ This confirms that we will face a tough, well-funded Democrat attack campaign. While the...

WASHINGTON -- Known for her outspoken activism, Jane Fonda is tops among supporters of interest groups that help political parties get out their messages despite donation and spending limits, according to a study released Wednesday.The nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, in what it billed as the first comprehensive look at such organizations, found they had spent an eye-popping $450 million to influence political campaigns over the last three years.The center, using a computer analysis of Internal Revenue Service disclosures filed by 471 of the political organizations, concluded that both major parties have made extensive use of their "silent partners," who...

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 group is America Votes, a confederacy of liberal causes that is mobilizing to fill the money void left by a new campaign-finance law that is hampering Democrats' fund-raising. … With a Presidential election bearing down, America Votes pulls together some 20 progressive interests in a kind of shadow party. …America Votes is the first evolutionary response to the law's fund-raising restrictions. And it might be the...

from the September 08, 2003 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0908/p01s01-usju.html Showdown over money in politicsIn rare summer session, Supreme Court Monday takes up issue of 'soft money,' which may reshape campaigning.By Warren Richey | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor WASHINGTON - Competing visions of the role of money in American politics are at the center of a showdown over campaign-finance reform at the US Supreme Court Monday. On one side are campaign-finance reform advocates who view the influx of hundreds of millions of dollars in unregulated "soft money" into the election system as a corrupting influence upon the democratic...

<p>Less than two weeks before the Supreme Court hears arguments on Sept. 8 regarding the constitutionality of the provisions of last year's campaign-finance-reform legislation, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) issued its summary of January-June hard-money contributions to federally registered political-party committees. That six-month period represents the first official fundraising tally since national political parties were banned from raising soft money by the McCain-Feingold bill.</p>

Democrats are poised to reap the benefits of soft-money contributions next year, even though the new campaign finance law bans candidates for federal office from raising such unlimited money directly. Republicans, who have dominated other aspects of fundraising so far in this election cycle, have seen one of their highly touted soft-money fundraising operations bog down in controversy and, as a result, unable to collect any donations. Internal Revenue Service records show that allies of the Democratic Party have set up a significantly greater number of large soft-money funds than have comparable GOP allies. As a result, such traditional Democratic...

Hillary's Hollywood flimflam manMichelle Malkin (archive) June 20, 2003 | Print | SendIf Hillary Rodham Clinton is so smart, so savvy, so razor sharp, how did she allow celebrity scam artist Aaron Tonken to dupe her and her husband?And if she denies being duped -- nobody can pull the wool over those steely blue eyes -- then what exactly did Hillary know about Tonken's fraudulent charity schemes and when did she know it?Federal investigators are now probing Tonken's involvement with a $1 million Hollywood political event for Hillary's 2000 Senate campaign, according to the Los Angeles Times. Earlier this week,...

Rep. Darrell Issa's bankrolling of the recall drive against Gov. Gray Davis is emerging as one of the first test cases of the sweeping new federal campaign finance law. A Davis ally has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission charging that the Vista Republican is raising money for the recall campaign in violation of the law known as McCain-Feingold. Raquelle De La Rocha, a Van Nuys lawyer and Davis appointee to the state Park and Recreation Commission, contends that Issa has broken the provision of the law that bars federal officeholders from raising "soft money" campaign contributions. Issa...

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) will tell members of Congress Thursday that they are free to attend soft-money fundraisers for state and local candidates, despite the new campaign finance law that bars them from accepting such funds themselves. The FEC move, spelling out what is permissible and what is not, is aimed at clearing up what has become a source of concern and confusion for many lawmakers. During the April recess, many local fundraising dinners, barbeques, and coffee gatherings are missing once-familiar sights: politicians back from Washington working the crowd to remind constituents about their accomplishments in the nation’s capital....