Re: Howard Ickes, Soros and ACT 527........
[KLP Note: John Edwards and John Kerry had better pay attention when just the average person can gather info like this....The media might not, but just plain folks 'get it...']
Posted on 11/13/2003 12:25 AM PST by JohnHuang
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
politicsinthepub.org
Who Is George Soros?
Howard Dean isn't giving up much by forgoing federal matching funds.
Monday, November 10, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
Howard Dean's weekend decision to forgo public campaign financing is playing as a big deal, but all this did was kick dirt on an already dying system. The men really on the cutting edge of political fund raising these days are George Soros and Harold Ickes.
Mr. Soros is the billionaire hedge-fund operator turned drug-legalization advocate and liberal political activist. Mr. Ickes is the New York lawyer who was at the center of the Clinton fund-raising scandals of 1996. Thanks to campaign-finance reform, these two men are fast becoming the Democratic Party's most important power brokers, nearly as crucial to regaining the White House as the party's Presidential nominee.
Recall that McCain-Feingold, in its alleged wisdom, banned large-dollar "soft money" donations to the political parties. But only a dreamer, or the Beltway press corps, could believe this money would somehow vanish from politics. Instead it is being re-routed through new and less accountable channels. Meet the new fat cats, same as the old fat cats--except harder to keep track of.
The irony is especially rich in the case of Mr. Soros, who has long supported campaign finance reform. By helping to limit those gifts to the two parties, the billionaire has cleared a path to make himself the biggest bankroller in Democratic politics. He's already pledged $10 million to America Coming Together (ACT), a new outfit dedicated to spending an unprecedented $75 million to defeat President Bush next year. He has also reportedly chipped in $20 million to the Center for American Progress, a new liberal think-tank that is financing the likes of Bush-hating pundit Eric Alterman.
Mr. Soros has every right to play in this sandbox, but the rest of us also have a right to wonder how much his views will follow his cash in influencing Democratic policy. He has given many millions of dollars to finance pro-marijuana initiative campaigns, and former Democratic Cabinet member Joseph Califano has called him "the Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization."
More recently, since September 11, Mr. Soros has made it his goal to burst what he has called "the bubble of American supremacy." He has said that having helped to liberate Communist countries, he now views America as the gravest threat to world freedom. In the Financial Times in March, he wrote that Mr. Bush "deliberately fosters fear because it helps to keep the nation lined up behind the president." Other flavorful Soros descriptions of current U.S. policy include "imperialist vision" and "Orwellian doublespeak" and something that "cannot be reconciled with the idea of an open society."
Meanwhile, let's not forget the talented Mr. Ickes, who is attempting to raise $50 million for TV ads to attack Mr. Bush next year. This is in addition to the Soros ACT effort, which is supposed to go for a get-out-the-vote ground game in 17 key states. According to the National Journal, Mr. Ickes and ACT President Ellen Malcolm are going on joint fund-raising visits and "are collaborating and building complementary strategies." Mr. Ickes has also said he hopes to get some cash of his own from Mr. Soros.
Mr. Ickes has had previous fund-raising star turns, most recently under oath before a Congressional investigating committee. The most memorable thing about the Clinton White House deputy chief of staff's testimony was his sudden lack of memory. While never charged with a crime, Mr. Ickes was called the "Svengali" of the Clinton fund-raising operation by Charles La Bella, who ran the Justice Department campaign-finance task force. Mr. La Bella recommended that Attorney General Janet Reno name a special counsel to explore in particular the Ickes role, but she refused.
And now thanks to campaign-finance reform, Mr. Ickes is back in business. Except that this time his $50 million fund will be able to tap fat cats with less scrutiny than before. His donors can give as much cash as they desire. And while he will have to report contributions to the Internal Revenue Service, the disclosure patterns of these "527" fund-raising committees have been full of holes and evasions, according to the liberal Center for Public Integrity.
The main restriction is that Mr. Ickes and ACT can't "coordinate" with the Democratic Party or the Presidential candidate, but this is one of those technical distinctions that everyone but John McCain realizes is silly. The folks running ACT are long-time Democratic Party operatives who don't have to meet in a smoke-filled room to figure out what the Dean or Gephardt campaign would want them to do.
On this point, we'd note how cleverly Dr. Dean has described his decision to give up federal matching funds as a "declaration of independence from special interests." But if he wins the nomination, he'll be the main beneficiary of the Soros-Ickes soft money spending barrage. Mr. Soros has already hosted a September fund raiser for the Vermont doctor at his suburban New York home. A President Dean would owe far more chits to Mr. Soros than Vice President Dick Cheney has ever owed to Halliburton.
All of this gives the lie to the reform promise to get big money out of politics--just one of the reasons we opposed it all along. The new rules are arguably more corrupting than the old system because they promote the illusion that such influence has been banished. Dr. Dean can gather all of the small-dollar Internet donations he wants, but in the end he's still going to be relying on the Soros-Ickes machine to get him to the White House.
Thursday, November 13, 2003 |
