The Shadow Party

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I’ve been reading "The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party" and wow, is it a eye-opener.   So I decided to do a series of posts from the book dealing with the front groups that Soros and his cronies have used to bypass McCain-Feingold to put millions of dollars into the hands of the Democrat party and push that party further to the left.

First some background.  The term "Shadow Party" was coined in 2003 by Lorraine Woellert of Business Week in September of 2003 while writing about the 527 groups being assembled by George Soros to circumvent the McCain-Feingold soft money ban.   Since McCain-Feingold banned soft money contributions to politicians and political parties, only allowing limited hard money contributions, Soros was easily able to circumvent the ban by giving money to political front groups that were "independent" of any party.  An example of a "independent" organization that Soros gave to would be MoveOn.org…..real independent huh?

To the extent that the Shadow Party can be said to have an official launch date, 17 July 2003 probably fits the bill.  On that day, a team of political strategists, wealthy donors, left-wing labor leaders and other Democrat activists gathered at George Soros’ Southhampton estate called El Mirador, on Long Island.  Aside from Soros, the most noteworthy attendee was Morton H. Halperin, whom Soros had hired the previous year to head the Washington office of his Open Society Institute.

It was at this meeting that Soros laid out his plan to defeat George Bush in the coming election.  No one has published a full list of attendees at the meeting but partial lists are available in accounts that appeared in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.  These include an impressive array of former Clinton administration officials, among them Halperin, who – despite his disloyalty as a Pentagon official during the Vietnam War (or mor likely because of it) served eight years under Clinton: first as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and finally as Director of Policy Planning for the Clinton State Department. 

The guests at Soros’ estate also included Clinton’s former chief of staff John Podesta; Jeremy Rosner, former special advisor to Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeline Albright; Robert Boorstin, a former advisor to Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin; and Steven Rosenthal, a left-wing union leader who served the Clinton White House as an advisor on union affairs to Labor Secretary Robert Reich.  Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, and Ellen Malcolm, found and president of Emily’s list…

[…["by morning," reports Cummings, "the outlines of a new organization began to emerge, and Mr. Soros pledged 10 million to get it started."  The name of that organization was America Coming Together (ACT) – a grassroots activist group designed to coordinate the Shadow Party’s get out the vote drive.  ACT would dispatch thousands of activists – some paid, some volunteers – to knock on doors and work phone banks, combining the manpower of left-wing unions, enviromentalists, abortion-rights activists and minority race warriors from civil rights organization.

The author then goes on to detail how Soros summoned Wes Boyd, founder of MoveOn.org, and pledged to donate $1 for ever $2 Boyd could raise from his members, up to 5 million dollars.  By November 2003 Soros announced to the world that he had donated millions for one goal, "Toppling Bush". 

Under Soros’ guidance, the Shadow Party infrastructure had assumed a coherent shape by early 2004.  Making up its framework were seven ostensibly "independent" non-profit groups, which, at the time, constituted the network’s administrative nexus.  Let us call them the Seven Sisters.  In chronological order, based upon their launch dates, they are:

  1. MoveOn.org (launched 22 September 1998)
  2. Center for American Progress (launched 7 July 2003)
  3. America Votes (launched 15 July 2003)
  4. America Coming Together (launched 17 July 2003
  5. The Media Fund (launched 5 November 2003)
  6. Joint Victory Campaign 2004 (launched 5 November 2003)
  7. The Thunder Road LLC (launched early 2004)

With the exception of MoveOn.org – based in Berkeley, California – all Seven Sisters maintained headquarters in Washington DC.  Testifying to the close links between these groups were their interlocking finances, Boards of Directors and corporate officers.  In some cased, they even shared office space.

For example, two of the Seven Sisters – The Media Fund and Joint Victory Campaign 2004 – shared an office in Suite #1100 at 1120 Connecticut Avenue, NW.  Three other groups – America Coming Together, America Votes and The Thunder Road Group – leased offices in the Motion Picture Association Building at 888 16th Street, NW.

The authors, David Horowitz and Richard Poe, then detail how involved Hollywood is with this Shadow Party, which should surprise no one.  They write about the Democrat lobbyists who have become MPAA presidents, hell…even Clinton’s Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman became the MPAA president.  They point out that Jane Fonda was the fourth largest donor to Democrat 527 groups in 2004….again, not surprising.  The same people putting out pieces of garbage like "A Mighty Heart" are the same people behind the scenes in the Shadow Party attempting to turn this country into a Socialist heaven.

Over the next few posts I will excerpt this excellent book on each and every one of the Seven Sisters.  It’s important information that needs to be disseminated to all conservatives to understand what we are fighting against.

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Trackbacked by The Thunder Run – Web Reconnaissance for 07/08/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention updated throughout the day…so check back often. This is a weekend edition so updates are as time and family permits.

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A few more names for your list 

Consider this: In the last election cycle, just five people — Soros, Progressive Insurance Chairman Peter Lewis, Hollywood mogul Stephen Bing and California investors Herbert and Marion Sandler — spent more than $78 million in their obsessive drive to rid the country of George W. Bush. That was more than the $75 million the federal government gave Bush and Sen. John Kerry to conduct their entire general election campaigns — and nearly all of it went into 527s.

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Here is another good article with a lot of lead up background by Byron York.

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More from Byron York, read his book the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy

America Coming Together Comes Apart
The Democrats’ great hope goes away.

A few days after the 2004 election, America Coming Together, the giant pro-Democratic voter turnout group that had raised about $200 million from George Soros, Peter Lewis, and a variety of Hollywood moguls, released a list of its accomplishments. Obviously, ACT, as big as it was, had not put John Kerry over the top, but the group had “held conversations at 4.6 million doorsteps about the truth about the Iraq war, about the state of our healthcare system, about the economy.” It had registered half-a-million new voters. In the last days of the campaign it had made 23 million phone calls, sent out 16 million pieces of mail, and delivered 11 million fliers. And on top of it all, it had “launched the largest get-out-the-vote effort the Democratic Party has ever seen,” turning out “unprecedented levels of voters in the battleground states.”

It all sounded very, very impressive. And then ACT listed its accomplishments at the polls, and the results seemed far less impressive. ACT had “helped ensure George W. Bush’s defeat in several of the key states and made the race close in others.” It had “enabled Democrats to take back the Oregon state legislature for the first time in 10 years.” It had helped Missouri Democrat Robin Carnahan win election as Missouri secretary of state. And finally, “In New Hampshire, we saw wins for the presidential race and the governor’s race, as well as a gain of four state senate seats.”

And that was it. Soros and all his colleagues had spent $200 million to elect a Democratic secretary of state in Missouri.

The question that hung in the air at the time was whether, after such a defeat, the big donors would continue to support ACT — to get ready for the next big campaign — and help it grow into an even larger turnout machine. And now we have the answer: No.

On Tuesday ACT, which had already downsized dramatically in the months since the election, pink-slipped most of its remaining staff and shut down all its state offices. The money had dried up, the donors were on to other things, and the “largest get-out-the-vote effort the Democratic Party has ever seen” was over.

Throughout its life — it started when Ellen Malcolm of EMILY’s List, Steve Rosenthal of the AFL-CIO, former Clinton operative Harold Ickes, and others held a downcast post-election dinner in November 2002 at a restaurant in Washington’s Dupont Circle neighborhood — America Coming Together operated on the assumption that big, big money would bring victory to the Democratic party. The McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law had just taken effect after the 2002 elections, and it revealed in stark terms that Democrats, despite their image as the party of the little guy, had for years been far more dependent on seven-figure contributions than Republicans were. With unlimited contributions to the parties banned by McCain-Feingold, Malcolm, Rosenthal, Ickes, and their colleagues — the group included representatives of the Service Employees International Union, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Sierra Club, and several other groups on the left — had to find a way to keep the big Democratic donors engaged. America Coming Together — a so-called “527” group that could still legally accept big contributions — was the answer.

In July 2003, they traveled to Southampton, to the estate of George Soros, where Soros’s political consultants made a pitch for spending large amounts of money on Democratic-voter turnout. Soros, his friend and giving partner Peter Lewis, and several others present agreed that it was a good idea, and the money began to flow. “We came out of that with a big commitment from George and Peter Lewis and some of the other participants,” Ellen Malcolm told me when I interviewed her for my book, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy. “So all of a sudden this little idea…” Malcolm paused for a moment before saying, “We could do more.”

A lot more. Soros, who would eventually give ACT $20 million of his own money, virtually dictated the size and scope of the new organization; he was personally responsible for its massive effort in all the swing states. “He’s very good at pushing out the limit,” Malcolm told me before the election. “At one point, we thought we could only do seven or nine states. And George would come in and say, ‘No, you can do this.’ He helped us put together some other ways to raise money and pushed us into doing all the states. And he was right.”

When rich Democrats across the country saw that Soros and Lewis had joined up with America Coming Together, they decided to hop on board, too. There was Hollywood producer Stephen Bing, who gave $12 million. There was Hyatt hotel heiress Linda Pritzker, whose family gave $5 million. And the Service Employees International Union, which gave $3 million. And Massachusetts technology entrepreneur Terry Ragon, who gave $3 million. And Texas technology executives Jonathan McHale and Christine Mattson, who together gave $3 million And the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, which gave $2.1 million. And New York philanthropist Lewis Cullman, who gave $2 million. And Rockefeller heir Alida Messinger, who gave $1.5 million. And Agnes Varis, head of AgVar Chemicals, who gave $1.5 million. And Illinois broadcasting magnate Fred Eychaner, who gave $1.5 million. And Seattle tech entrepreneur Robert Glaser, who gave $1.2 million. And the Teamsters Union, which gave $1 million. And Colorado entrepreneur Tim Gill, who gave $1 million. And television producer Marcy Carsey, who gave $1 million. And Pennsylvania financier Theodore Aronson, who gave $1 million. And Oregon publisher Win McCormack, who gave $1 million. And heiress Anne Getty Earhart, who gave $1 million. And Texas technology entrepreneur James H. Clark, who gave $1 million. And the American Federation of Teachers, which gave $1 million. And Florida millionaire Dan Lewis, who gave $1 million. And Ohio philanthropist Richard Rosenthal, who gave $1 million. And clothing entrepreneur Susie Tompkins Buell, who gave $1 million.

And those were just the ones who contributed $1 million or more. In all, America Coming Together, along with its sister organization, the Media Fund, raised and spent about $200 million. And as Election Day approached, the organization gave off an air of confidence born of the belief that it was simply too big to fail.

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May I recommend another good book?

FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS, The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets. By NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB.

Here, you’ll find pages devoted to George Soros. And, what struck me most? To be a successful trader you CANNOT BE LOCKED INTO ANY POSITION. So to quote Taleb, he says Soros never depends on his next move being related to anything in the past. He doesn’t follow previous successes, or disasters, with the same type of thinking. Or behaviors where his money is involved.

I think going into 2004, George Soros emerged as a HATER OF THE BUSH FAMILY! His motive, then, was little different than Ross Perot’s in 1992. Except that instead of being on the ticket, he funded what would turn out to be the gigolo’s run. But he didn’t know WHO was gonna get nominated! Since Wesley Clark, who was being backed by the elites, didn’t pass the smell test with the voters. Not past ten days worth of standing around on the Bonkey stage.

This time around? Bush isn’t in the picture. And, I’m not so sure George Soros is gonna keep backing the hollywood losers.

I’m not even sure, yet, that hillary has a “lock” on the Bonkey nomination. I mean, how suicidal are they as a party? And, why is Cindy Sheehan “back,” if not to see pelosi toss her off, easily?

As to McCain-Feingold, it just cost McCain his whole bus. I don’t know why he doesn’t quit. But it’s possible he’s hanging on just for the hell of it? It can’t be much fun knowing he’s about as popular as Mike Gavel and Ron Paul.

And, yes, I’m waiting for Tommy Thompson and Brownback to also depart.

By the way, if so much money went TO the gigolo, how come so little money was needed by the Swiftboat Vets to prove Americans aren’t angry at our military?

And, what’s going on in congress? You mean to tell me you don’t think there’s gonna be splits in the leadership? That the crap that passed for leadership, starting in 1994, under Newt Gingrich, is still what passes? Sometimes, I think people who depend on getting elected, are at least as smart as they have to be to keep their seats.

The environment in congress? Ain’t what it used to be for George Soros and his money. Of course. I’m just guessing.

And, I’ll be here, daily, to read your excerps. About a past event where the Bonkeys lost the 2004 race.

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Hey Carol, nice to see ya again =)

I believe that Soros is behind Hillary 100%. She is for almost everything this man wants which is redistribution of wealth and everything else that comes with Socialism. Gonna check out that book recommendation tho.

how come so little money was needed by the Swiftboat Vets to prove Americans aren’t angry at our military?

Because Kerry was a loser…they backed the wrong horse. But with the Clintons it’s a different story because make no mistake about it, lefties want Bill back and the only way that will happen is with Hillary.

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