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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (9597)	3/22/2004 2:14:15 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

Soros presses anti-Bush effort Regulations may affect spending By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff, 3/22/2004 CHICAGO -- There were gingerbread houses on the tables and lights on the Christmas trees at the White House holiday reception last December, but George W. Bush was haunted by the ghost of a Hungarian-born billionaire. ADVERTISEMENT It was right before the US Supreme Court upheld the campaign finance overhaul law, and Representative Martin T. Meehan, Democrat of Lowell and a chief sponsor of the package, gently taunted the president, telling him, "Mr. President, the Supreme Court is going to rule soon on the law you and I made together." The president, Meehan recalled, responded dryly, "Is it going to be OK for George to spend all that money?" Bush -- whose campaign has already raised $170 million -- wasn't talking about himself. He was referring to George Soros, the 73-year-old financier who has spent some $5 billion to promote democratic principles around the world and who now says he will spend what it takes to elect a Democratic candidate in his new home country. Soros, whose condemnations of Bush are as lavish as his bankroll, could bridge a critical fund-raising gap between the GOP and the Democrats. To Republicans, Soros is a meddler and a megalomaniac who imagines his wealth gives him the right to tinker with politics from Albania to Washington. They are eagerly awaiting new regulations from the Federal Election Commission that might stop Soros from funding certain anti-Bush groups. "I have made the rejection of the Bush doctrine the central project of my life for the next year . . . and that is why I am ready to put my money where my mouth is," Soros said in an interview, describing Bush as a unilateralist who has bungled the Iraq situation, alienated foreign leaders, and used the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as a "pretext to pursue a dream of American supremacy that is neither attainable nor desirable." Soros, who experienced Nazi and Soviet repression in Eastern Europe, now warns that Bush's policies will alienate the world and choke off civil liberties. Born in Budapest, Soros left in 1947 for England, where he attended the London School of Economics, and then moved in 1956 to the United States, where he made billions as a financier and chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC. For the last 15 years, Soros divided his time between making pots of money and giving it away, funding democracy-enhancing projects abroad through his Open Society Institute. Amassing a fortune through clever -- some would say ruthless -- capitalist ventures, including bold currency speculations, Soros has enraged free-marketeers with his criticism of capitalism itself and of Bush's foreign policy doctrine. Soros's most recent book, "The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power," is an attack on Bush's preemptive military action against Iraq. The pledge to spend millions to defeat Bush has rattled many conservatives. Some have warned that Soros might use his investing prowess to tamper with the US financial markets right before the election to damage Bush's prospects, a charge Soros's associates dismiss as an absurd conspiracy theory. Others have accused him of comparing Bush directly to the Nazis -- a charge Soros says is based on a misinterpretation of his statements about tolerance of critical thought here -- and some Republicans charge that he is skirting the campaign-finance laws he claims to support. For his part, Soros said he was honoring both the letter and the spirit of the law, which seeks to remove special interests from campaigns. boston.com