George Soros
Founder and Chairman
George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary on August 12, 1930. He survived the Nazi occupation of Budapest and left communist Hungary in 1947 for England, where he graduated from the London School of Economics (LSE). While a student at LSE, Soros became familiar with the work of the philosopher Karl Popper, who had a profound influence on his thinking and later on his professional and philanthropic activities.
The financier. In 1956, Soros moved to the United States, where he began to accumulate a large fortune through an international investment fund he founded and managed. Today he is chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC.
The philanthropist. Soros has been active as a philanthropist since 1979, when he began providing funds to help black students attend the University of Cape Town in apartheid South Africa. Today he is chairman of the Open Society Institute (OSI) and the founder of a network of philanthropic organizations that are active in more than 50 countries. Based primarily in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union—but also in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the United States—these foundations are dedicated to building and maintaining the infrastructure and institutions of an open society. They work closely with OSI to develop and implement a range of programs focusing on civil society, education, media, public health, and human rights as well as social, legal, and economic reform. In recent years, OSI and the Soros foundations network have spent more than $400 million annually to support projects in these and other focus areas. In 1992, Soros founded Central European University, with its primary campus in Budapest.
The author and philosopher. Soros is the author of eight books, including The Bubble of America Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power (PublicAffairs, January 2004); George Soros on Globalization (2002); The Alchemy of Finance (1987); Opening the Soviet System (1990); Underwriting Democracy (1991); Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve (1995); The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered (1998); and Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism (2000). His articles and essays on politics, society, and economics regularly appear in major newspapers and magazines around the world.
George Soros's political activities are wholly separate from the Open Society Institute. Read an official OSI statement on this subject.
Nov 23, 2003 -- Washington Post Editorial: Mr. Soros's Millions
BILLIONAIRE FINANCIER George Soros may be the new central banker of the Democratic Party. He's given $10 million to America Coming Together, a Democratic voter mobilization group aimed at defeating President Bush. He pledged another $2.5 million to the liberal group Moveon.org for a television advertising campaign highlighting "Bush policy failures," and as much as $3 million to a new Democratic think tank, the Center for American Progress. Which leads to obvious questions: This is campaign finance reform? Wasn't the whole point of the new campaign finance law to get big checks of this kind out of politics? Are these huge donations healthy for small-d democracy, not just big-D Democrats?
The central reform of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation was to stem the tidal wave of "soft money" contributions from wealthy individuals, corporations and labor unions to political parties: Each party raked in about $250 million in such checks in 2000. It was inevitable that some of this money would shift to outside groups. Indeed, the groups had become players even during the heyday of party soft money. Now, they've become even more important. That's particularly true for Democrats because of the GOP's advantage in hard money, the limited-dollar contributions that remain available to parties.
The emergence of these groups doesn't mean the campaign finance law was for naught. McCain-Feingold severed the toxic link between big checks and politicians. Politicians can't solicit money for these outside groups, and the groups are limited in plotting strategy with candidates or parties. Republicans are angling to make the Soros-backed groups look like a Democratic end run around McCain-Feingold, but Republicans and their allies haven't been shy about using such entities in the past, and that's apt to be true in the 2004 campaign as well. A critical question will be whether the money goes to groups that are required to disclose their receipts and spending (so-called 527s), such as most of those backed by Mr. Soros, or whether the checks will flow to nonprofit groups that don't have to reveal their finances -- a far more dangerous development.
There remains something unsettling about those Soros checks. Mr. Soros, who spent $5 billion to promote democracy around the world and $18 million to spur campaign finance reform in this country, told The Post's Laura Blumenfeld that defeating Mr. Bush is "the central focus of my life." True, there is a difference between a check motivated by an ideological worldview and one prompted by economic self-interest. But such outsize voices, on the left or right, pose dangers to a democratic system: No one wants one deep-pocketed person picking the next president. For Democrats thrilled with the Soros millions, imagine conservative financier Richard Mellon Scaife opening his bank account on behalf of Mr. Bush.
"I do not represent any special interest," Mr. Soros says. "My contributions are made in the public interest." Mr. Soros may not be seeking a rider on an appropriations bill, but who is he to determine the public interest?
The Soros donations point up another problem: Disclosure is critical to an effective campaign finance system, yet no information about Mr. Soros's recent generosity will be on the public record until February, when the next reports are due. Mr. Soros has been commendably open about his gifts, but if a wealthy donor wanted to make a big and stealthy splash during the primaries, the information wouldn't be public until after Iowa and New Hampshire. Remember Republicans for Clean Air, the mystery group that attacked John McCain during the 2000 primaries? That episode prompted Congress to require that such groups report their activities, though the nonprofit loophole remains. It would be a minor change, with a big payoff, to require that these shadow political parties follow the same disclosure schedule as the parties themselves.
(c) The Washington Post
Soros takes on Bush
By Susan Mitchell
American multibillionaire George Soros, one of the world's richest men, has given away nearly US$5 billion to promote democracy in the former Soviet bloc, Africa, and Asia.
Now the philanthropist, who has a share in theValentia consortium that owns Eircom, has a new project - defeating President Bush.
The Hungarian emigre described the project as the central focus of his life. He has mounted a campaign involving a book, magazine, and newspaper articles, as well as multi-million dollar donations to liberal groups, all aimed at defeating Bush in the November 2004 elections.
Announcing a donation of US$5 million to a liberal activist organisation called Move-O n.org, Soros told the Washington Post last week that the effort to oust Bush was a "matter of life and death".
"America, under Bush, is a danger to the world," he said, "and I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is." The gift brings Soros's donations to groups dedicated to Bush's removal to US$15.5million.
Other pledges of cash have gone to America Coming Together (ACT), an anti-Bush group that proposes to mobilise voters against the president in 17 key states.
Soros has also helped to bankroll a new liberal thinktank, the Centre for American Progress, to be headed by Bill Clinton's former chief of staff, John Podesta. It aims to counter the rising influence of neoconservative institutions in Washington. In past elections, Soros, 74, contributed relatively modest sums. But he said he had grown alarmed at the influence of neo-conservatives. He described how he has been waking at 3am, his thoughts shaking him "like an alarm clock".
Soros said that a "supremacist ideology"guides theWhite House. In a statement that has outraged Republicans, Soros claimed he heard echoes in Republican Party rhetoric of his childhood in occupied Hungary.
"When I hear Bush say `You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans." It conjured up memories, he said, of Nazi slogans on the walls, Der Féind Hort Mit (The enemy is listening). Soros has already written seven books on economics and world affairs, dense tracts of political theory and complex economic programmes.
He now plans to set out his reasons for detesting the Bush administration in a book to be published in January, The Bubble of American Supremacy. It is a no-holds-barred attack on what he sees as the hubris of American policy.
"I was very comfortable with what this country stood for," he told Fortune magazine. "But with the Bush administration coming into power, and the way it has exploited the terrorist attacks of September 11, I feel very uncomfortable about the direction in which the US is taking the world, and to me it's not business as usual."
Soros has made a career out of detecting when normal situations turn far from normal. He has become one of the richest men in the world by reacting before other financiers and governments.
He has now predicted a "crisis of global capitalism", which he attributes to the Bush administration's policy "of dominating the world in the guise of fighting terrorism".
As an analyst, Soros has rattled global markets in ways few individuals ever have. In 1992, he led an attack on the British pound, made US$1 billion within several weeks, left the Bank of England's currency devalued by 12 per cent and forced its ejection from the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Monetary System.
Since then, anything he has said about a currency has effectively become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Detractors have accused him of destabilising world currencies and wrecking the economies of entire nations. After his much-publicised clash with Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Moham mad during the 1997 Asian economic crisis, Mahathir reportedly referred to him as a "moron".
Last year a Parisian court fined him €2.2 million for insider trading, after finding him guilty of profiting from inside knowledge of a 1998 takeover bid for Societe Generale, a French bank. Soros is appealing the ruling.
Soros started his first hedge fund in 1969 with US$4 million, just a fraction of it his own. Between then and 2000, Soros's fund returned an average of 31 per cent annually, with only three losing years. His fund company now has about US$12 billion under management. Of that, US$7.4 billion is in the flagship Quantum Endowment fund.
Soros maintains that there are outside investors in Quantum, but former executives have said that the overwhelming share - if not all - of the US$7.4 billion belongs to Soros and his family.
Soros' actions have infuriated the Republican Party, which has accused him of avoiding federal limits on donations to political parties - an allegation which Democrats constantly level at big business for its links with the Republicans. One Republican spokeswoman claimed Soros had "purchased the Democratic Party".
In the past ten years, Soros has been accused by Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov and deposed Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze of directly engineering Georgia's Rose Revolution.
He has been slammed by a Boston Globe columnist as a "greater threat to democracy" than Rupert Murdoch, cited as the main reason for falls in the value of the US dollar and South Africa rand and accused by the Jerusalem Post of defending anti-Semitism. Soros is a Jew.
He has always had a high profile but, if the first two weeks of December are anything to go by, the Democrats' benefactor looks set to take centre stage in the race for the White House.
Soros, groups target Bush
President's campaign cites 'liberal special interests'
Friday, December 26, 2003 Posted: 3:32 PM EST (2032 GMT)
George Soros has pledged millions to independent groups, "to ensure that the money spent on trying to re-elect President Bush doesn't overwhelm the process."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Story Tools
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE MORNING GRIND
CNN's exclusive daily wrap on all things political, will return January 5.
RELATED
Kerry set to loan campaign $6 million
Vermont: Dean records can stay sealed
From Judy's Desk: The '04 Dems weigh in on 'Code Orange'
Robert Novak: The cardinal rules
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• America Coming Together
• Center for Public Integrity
• Club for Growth
• MoveOn.org
• Soros Foundations Network
VIDEO
CNN's Bill Schneider on Howard Dean's challenge to the Democratic Party.
PLAY VIDEO
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CNN's Candy Crowley on the importance of the Iowa caucuses.
PLAY VIDEO
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CNN's Jeff Greenfield on John Kerry's uphill battle.
PLAY VIDEO
SPECIAL REPORT
• Who's in, Who's out
• The Issues
• The Money
• The Polls
• Primary Explainer
• Timeline
• Special Report
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
George Soros
George W. Bush
Fund Raising
Elections
or Create your own
Manage alerts / What is this?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- President Bush's most-feared political opponents for now may not be Democratic presidential candidates, but a billionaire financier and anti-Bush advocacy groups with big-spending plans.
"Liberal special interests, led by billionaire currency trader George Soros, are raising millions in soft, unregulated money to defeat President Bush," the Bush campaign says in an Internet posting.
Bush has already raised more than $110 million for his primary campaign, in which he has no challenger, far outstripping any Democratic rival.
Campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said anti-Bush groups threaten to spend as much as $400 million, justifying the Bush primary-season goal of raising a record $170 million, largely through a network of major supporters who funnel donations to the campaign.
But campaign finance experts say there is little chance of Bush being outspent.
"The Bush campaign is raising money hand-over-fist. He has the aura of the incumbency and the power of the presidency. He's in the catbird seat," said Celia Wexler, research director of the Common Cause good-government group.
Along with Soros, the Hungarian-born financier who has pledged $12.5 million to ensure "we can write off the Bush doctrine as a temporary aberration," another chief target of Republican ire are independent political groups such as the Internet-based MoveOn.org.
The group has raised nearly $7 million to run ads attacking Bush, and launched an anti-Bush television-commercial contest which has drawn more than 1,000 submissions from the public.
Groups including MoveOn.org are banned from coordinating activities with any party or candidate. But they have gained prominence under last year's McCain-Feingold campaign finance act which ended unregulated "soft money" donations. Democrats had relied on soft money to help claw back a Republican advantage in individual donations. (Supreme Court upholds 'soft money' ban)
"They have the potential to do an incredible amount of damage," said Scott Reed, a Republican consultant with close ties to the White House. He said the independent groups could run "over the top" ads attacking Bush with political impunity, and there was little financial accountability.
He suggested Soros may be seeking "payback" for the Iraq war, reflecting business interests in France and Germany.
Independent groups
Soros pledged his money to two independent political groups -- MoveOn.org and America Coming Together. "My contributions help to ensure that the money spent on trying to re-elect President Bush doesn't overwhelm the process," he said in a Washington Post opinion piece earlier this month.
Soros -- whose new book on the subject is "The Bubble of American Supremacy" -- said he was "deeply concerned with the direction in which the Bush administration is taking the United States and the world."
The Bush team's fund-raising appeals sharply criticize such efforts and accuse the independent groups of raising money overseas. "To beat these billionaire liberals and the flood of foreign money they're encouraging, we need your help today," an e-mail solicitation read.
MoveOn.org founder Wes Boyd said the groups accepts no foreign donations and defended the group's methods. He said its donors have no expectation of access to a successful candidate, unlike those who donate directly to a campaign. "There's no strings attached," he said.
The Center for Public Integrity government watchdog group said independent committees from across the political spectrum have raised $32 million this year, although the Soros-backed America Coming Together had yet to report.
Wexler said it was too early to judge how effective the groups would be. The Federal Election Commission is expected to issue guidelines in February on their political activity.
Conservatives have also used independent political groups and are doing so again this year. "They're playing catch-up ball," after waiting for the Supreme Court's December ruling upholding the campaign finance reform legislation, Reed said.
The conservative Club for Growth has run ads in Iowa and New Hampshire, where the nation's first major nominating contests take place, attacking front-running Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean.
the Claude Rains Memorial Gambling Awareness Award goes to Ed Gillespie of the RNC, (still) a major Republican lobbyist, who has discovered to his shock and horror that rich people put money into politics.
imagine their outrage at the news that George Soros, the billionaire financier and philanthropist, will spend millions next year to defeat President Bush. Actually, no imagination is needed to hear the squealing and squawking from the right. From the commanding heights of the Republican National Committee and House hearing rooms all the way down to the lowliest Web sites, George Soros is an object of vilification.
Righteous anger about the Soros funding burns hottest among those with the least credibility. Leading the anti-Soros chorus is Ed Gillespie, the new R.N.C. chairman and former lobbyist. His clients notably included the late Enron Corporation, a firm where criminal book-cooking paid for promiscuous political palm-greasing.
According to a former Enron executive interviewed by The Washington Post, "whenever we had to get in to see a Republican, the first call was to Gillespie." While churning out press releases about the nefarious Soros, the R.N.C. chief continues to hold an ownership stake in Quinn Gillespie, the lobby shop he founded in 2000 with former Clinton White House counsel Jack Quinn that has reported fees totaling $27 million from its corporate clientele.
Now Mr. Gillespie accuses Mr. Soros of seeking to empower "special interests," and of undermining campaign-finance restrictions that the Republican Party has traditionally opposed and subverted. He frets that the Soros donations may not be "disclosed to the public."
...
The Journal editorial sniffs that Mr. Soros will give money through so-called "527" committees (a reference to the section of the I.R.S. code that regulates such groups), whose "disclosure patterns … have been full of holes and evasions." And any Democrat who defeats the President will have no choice but to answer to the Soros political "machine."
Exactly what has Mr. Soros done to provoke this reaction? He has given $3 million to a new liberal Washington think tank, the Center for American Progress. And yes, he has publicly pledged $10 million to Americans Coming Together, a liberal voter-registration effort, and $5 million to MoveOn.org, an Internet-based group that is raising millions of dollars in small donations for liberal candidates and causes.
That sounds like a lot of money, except when contrasted with the enormous amounts pumped into organs of conservative propaganda every year by such truly prodigious spenders as Sun Myung Moon, Rupert Murdoch, Richard Mellon Scaife and literally dozens of other obscure but rich Republicans.
Besides, there is no evidence that Mr. Soros is seeking to influence Washington policy on behalf of his financial interests. The same can hardly be said of the "Rangers" and "Pioneers" who collect hundreds of thousands of dollars every day for the Bush campaign. The corporate leaders and K Street lobbyists who "bundle" these donations include an individual "tracking number" on every checkÑto ensure proper "credit" by the White House.
The results can be traced in nearly every important item of White House legislation. Its energy bill brimmed with billions in favors to the oil, nuclear, coal and auto industries. Its Medicare "reform" will dispense billions to the insurance, pharmaceutical, hospital and nursing-home industries.
Meanwhile, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay oversees his own array of Republican 527 committees, which funnel millions of dollars into various advertising campaigns and legislative races. He has long since mastered the "holes and evasions" of this system, and is constantly drilling new ones.
According to The New York Times, his latest is a "charity" that would suck huge, undisclosed contributions from anonymous Republican donors who desire access to Congress. Supposedly intended for the benefit of neglected children, this money’s real purpose is to pay for "late-night parties, luxury suites, and yacht cruises" at next September’s Republican convention.
Soros pins his hopes on defeat for Bush
By JULIA MALONE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rick McKay / AJC
Author of "The Bubble of American Supremacy," billionaire George Soros says he will devote this year to unseating President Bush.
WASHINGTON -- Billionaire George Soros, probably the single biggest giver to Democratic causes, said Monday that Republican criticism of him could be very costly.
"It has got a rise out of me," he said, adding that his anger "will probably find expression" in additional donations to efforts to defeat President Bush.
How much, Soros wouldn't say. He already has given $10 million to Americans Coming Together and $2.5 million to www.moveon.org, groups that are running anti-Bush campaigns.
Soros, recently ranked as the 28th richest man in America by Forbes magazine, said he will devote this year to unseating Bush.
"I'm ready to put my money where my mouth is," said the Hungarian-born financier, who made his fortune in New York as a hedge-fund operator. His opposition to the Bush administration is based chiefly on the invasion of Iraq.
Soros declined to endorse any Democratic contender but said his views are closest to those of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.
"I'm keen for Dean," Soros said, dismissing a published report that he had doubts about the apparent front-runner.
He made the remarks at the Carnegie Center for International Peace to promote his new book, "The Bubble of American Supremacy," a searing analysis of the Bush administration's foreign policy.
Soros said the president had "deliberately deceived the public" about his reasons for invading Iraq and said Bush had "used the war on terrorism as a pretext to pursue a dream of American supremacy."
He complained that he had been "demonized" by the "Bush propaganda machine." He especially objected to a Wall Street Journal editorial last month that criticized him for financing pro-marijuana voter initiatives and repeated a charge by Joseph Califano, secretary of health, education and welfare in the Carter administration, that Soros is "the Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization."
Soros, who favors medicinal use of marijuana, complained that critics skip over his donations of $700 million to assist the growth of democracy in Eastern Europe.
He also has come under fire from both Republicans and some campaign finance reformers for making big-dollar donations to political groups. They say Soros, who supported a new law banning unlimited so-called "soft money" donations to political parties, has violated the spirit of the statute by giving huge amounts to groups that are not technically affiliated with parties but have partisan leanings.
Soros countered Monday that he has fully disclosed his contributions.
"I think MoveOn is doing a very good job," he said of the liberal, Internet-based group that is collecting money to run ads critical of the White House. "It's a very appropriate and exciting way of communication."
The group recently stirred a controversy by including two spots on its Web site comparing Bush to Adolf Hitler.
That was a mistake, Soros said, but he added that it was no reason for him to curtail his support.
Americans Coming Together, the other group he is supporting, plans to raise $95 million to run a get-out-the-vote campaign in key battleground states.
Conservatives Shocked By the Power of Money
by Joe Conason
Whenever Republican leaders complain about the power of money in politics, the source of their concern is always the same: Somewhere, a Democrat of means has just written a substantial check. To Republicans who regard their financial advantage as a partisan birthright, such leveling gestures seem terribly unfair—as unsporting as a liberal who fights back.
So imagine their outrage at the news that George Soros, the billionaire financier and philanthropist, will spend millions next year to defeat President Bush. Actually, no imagination is needed to hear the squealing and squawking from the right. From the commanding heights of the Republican National Committee and House hearing rooms all the way down to the lowliest Web sites, George Soros is an object of vilification.
Righteous anger about the Soros funding burns hottest among those with the least credibility. Leading the anti-Soros chorus is Ed Gillespie, the new R.N.C. chairman and former lobbyist. His clients notably included the late Enron Corporation, a firm where criminal book-cooking paid for promiscuous political palm-greasing.
According to a former Enron executive interviewed by The Washington Post, "whenever we had to get in to see a Republican, the first call was to Gillespie." While churning out press releases about the nefarious Soros, the R.N.C. chief continues to hold an ownership stake in Quinn Gillespie, the lobby shop he founded in 2000 with former Clinton White House counsel Jack Quinn that has reported fees totaling $27 million from its corporate clientele.
Now Mr. Gillespie accuses Mr. Soros of seeking to empower "special interests," and of undermining campaign-finance restrictions that the Republican Party has traditionally opposed and subverted. He frets that the Soros donations may not be "disclosed to the public."
As Republican distress over Mr. Soros echoes in the conservative chat rooms, some critics aren’t as high-minded as Mr. Gillespie. On the Web site run by GOPUSA—a commercial entity that attracted major Republican legislators, lobbyists and commentators to its Washington conference this month—the Jewish financier was recently described as "a Hungarian-born descendant of Shylock."
For the vast majority of right-wing whiners, however, what rankles is not his ethnicity, but his determination. Mr. Soros, they say, is a hypocrite because after endorsing campaign-finance reform, he’s now violating the spirit of the McCain-Feingold law that banned soft-money donations to the political parties. The Wall Street Journal warns that liberal "fat cats" like Mr. Soros will be "less accountable" than the old soft-money donors, and that "his views will follow his cash in influencing Democratic policy."
The Journal editorial sniffs that Mr. Soros will give money through so-called "527" committees (a reference to the section of the I.R.S. code that regulates such groups), whose "disclosure patterns … have been full of holes and evasions." And any Democrat who defeats the President will have no choice but to answer to the Soros political "machine."
Exactly what has Mr. Soros done to provoke this reaction? He has given $3 million to a new liberal Washington think tank, the Center for American Progress. And yes, he has publicly pledged $10 million to Americans Coming Together, a liberal voter-registration effort, and $5 million to MoveOn.org, an Internet-based group that is raising millions of dollars in small donations for liberal candidates and causes.
That sounds like a lot of money, except when contrasted with the enormous amounts pumped into organs of conservative propaganda every year by such truly prodigious spenders as Sun Myung Moon, Rupert Murdoch, Richard Mellon Scaife and literally dozens of other obscure but rich Republicans.
Besides, there is no evidence that Mr. Soros is seeking to influence Washington policy on behalf of his financial interests. The same can hardly be said of the "Rangers" and "Pioneers" who collect hundreds of thousands of dollars every day for the Bush campaign. The corporate leaders and K Street lobbyists who "bundle" these donations include an individual "tracking number" on every check—to ensure proper "credit" by the White House.
The results can be traced in nearly every important item of White House legislation. Its energy bill brimmed with billions in favors to the oil, nuclear, coal and auto industries. Its Medicare "reform" will dispense billions to the insurance, pharmaceutical, hospital and nursing-home industries.
Meanwhile, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay oversees his own array of Republican 527 committees, which funnel millions of dollars into various advertising campaigns and legislative races. He has long since mastered the "holes and evasions" of this system, and is constantly drilling new ones.
According to The New York Times, his latest is a "charity" that would suck huge, undisclosed contributions from anonymous Republican donors who desire access to Congress. Supposedly intended for the benefit of neglected children, this money’s real purpose is to pay for "late-night parties, luxury suites, and yacht cruises" at next September’s Republican convention.
But it is Mr. Soros who threatens the integrity of the political process. He wants to register more voters.
Billionaire Soros stakes fortune on 'matter of life and death' - defeating George Bush
by Andrew Gumbel
Link to Article
George Soros has donated almost $5bn (£3bn) over the years to help emerging democracies in Eastern Europe recover from the shadow of tyranny. Now he is applying the same principles, and a large chunk of his fortune, to the United States, where he believes the defeat of George Bush in next year's presidential election is "a matter of life and death".
So far, he has spent more than $15m: two-thirds of it going to a liberal-leaning group called America Coming Together, which intends to mobilise voters in battleground states next November; $3m of it going to a new Washington think-tank run by Bill Clinton's former chief of staff, John Podesta; and $2.5m to the passionately anti-Bush internet lobbying group MoveOn.org, to help pay for television advertisements attacking the President.
Political donations on this scale have precedents. On the right, figures such as Richard Mellon Scaife and Howard Ahmanson have given hundreds of millions of dollars over several decades on political projects both high (setting up the Heritage Foundation think-tank, the driving engine of the Reagan presidency) and low (bankrolling investigations into President Clinton's sexual indiscretions and the suicide of the White House insider Vincent Foster).
But on the left it is almost unheard of. Mr Soros has given money to political campaigns before - $122,000 in the 2000 elections alone. This, though, is very different. In recent interviews he has likened the with-us-or-against-us rhetoric of the Bush administration to the political language of Nazi Germany. And in a forthcoming book, The Bubble of American Supremacy, he argues that the destructive arrogance of the White House, in Iraq and elsewhere, is like an overheating of the stock market that must and will be corrected.
The Hungarian born financier and philanthropist describes the Bush administration's policies as a crude form of social Darwinism. "I call it crude because it ignores the role of co-operation in the survival of the fittest, and puts all the emphasis on competition." And he explains why the current administration is so much at odds with the driving ideology of his worldwide Open Society Institute. "The supremacist ideology of the Bush Administration stands in opposition to the principles of an open society, which recognise that people have different views and that nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth," he writes. "When President Bush says, as he does frequently, that freedom will prevail, he means that America will prevail. In a free and open society, people are supposed to decide for themselves what they mean by freedom and democracy, and not simply follow America's lead ... A chasm has opened between America and the rest of the world."
Unlike other critics who have made casual comparisons between the Bush White House and the Nazis, Mr Soros speaks with some authority - he survived the German occupation of Budapest as a boy.
That has not deterred prominent Republicans from hooting with indignation, or from accusing him of hypocrisy because Mr Soros has been a champion of campaign finance reform intended to keep big-money donations out of politics. "It's incredibly ironic that George Soros is trying to create a more open society by using an unregulated, under-the-radar-screen, shadowy, soft-money group to do it," the Republican National Committee spokeswoman Christine Iverson said recently. The Washington Post has similar reservations, writing in a recent editorial: "Wasn't the whole point of the new campaign finance law to get big checks of this kind out of politics? Are these huge donations healthy for small-d democracy, not just big-D Democrats?" Mr Soros's response seems to be: I will do whatever it takes, if the result is defeat for President Bush.
If the Republicans are alarmed, it is partly because the Soros donations are part of a new form of political activism on the left, one that takes advantage of the internet. MoveOn.org, with its 1.8 million members, has proved it can raise millions of dollars in days for a liberal cause and act as a counterweight to political organisations, including the Democratic Party leadership.
Under Reported
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
George Soros:A lot of name-calling about my donations
By: George Soros
Miami Herald Date: 12/12/2003
Printer Friendly Version
Many other wealthy Americans and I are contributing millions of dollars to grass-roots organizations engaged in the 2004 presidential election. We are deeply concerned with the direction in which the Bush administration is taking the United States and the world.
If voters reject the president's policies, America can write off the Bush Doctrine as a temporary aberration and resume its rightful place in the world. But if they endorse those policies, the United States shall have to live with the hostility of the world and endure a vicious cycle of escalating violence.
In this effort, I have committed $10 million to America Coming Together, a grass-roots, get-out-the-vote operation, and $2.5 million to the MoveOn.org Voter Fund, a popular Internet advocacy group that is airing advertisements to highlight the administration's misdeeds. This is a pittance in comparison with money raised and spent by U.S. conservative groups.
Rather than a debate on the issues, there has been a lot of name-calling about my donations by such organizations as the Republican National Committee and the National Rifle Association. In an attempt to taint the groups that I support and to intimidate other donors, those organizations imply that my contributions are illegitimate or that I have somehow broken the law.
I have scrupulously abided by both the letter and the spirit of the law. Both America Coming Together and the MoveOn.org Voter Fund are organizations that, according to a specific reference in the U.S. tax code, are entitled to receive unlimited contributions from individuals. Both groups are fully transparent about their motives and activities. Both file detailed and frequent reports with government regulators.
The most recent campaign-finance law attempts to limit the influence that special interests can gain by financing candidates and so level the playing field between the Republican and Democratic parties. My contributions are made in that spirit.
President Bush has a huge fundraising advantage because he has figured out a clever way to raise money. He relies on donors he calls Pioneers, who collect $100,000 apiece in campaign contributions in increments that fall within the legal limit of $2,000 that any individual can give; and on those he calls Rangers, who collect at least $200,000.
Many of these Pioneers and Rangers are corporate officials who are well situated to raise funds from their business associates, bundle them together and pass them along with tracking numbers to ensure proper ''credit'' to each individual donor of $2,000. Thus they are buying the same level of access and influence for their corporate interests that they previously obtained with their own and corporate funds. With the help of these Pioneers and Rangers, Bush is on track to collect $200 million.
To counter the fundraising advantage obtained by this strategy, I have contributed to independent organizations that by law are forbidden to coordinate their activities with the political parties or candidates. That law minimizes or eliminates the ability to purchase influence in exchange for my contribution. Moreover, I don't seek such influence. My contributions are made in what I believe to be the common interest. ACT is working to register voters, and MoveOn is getting more people engaged in the national debate over Bush's policies.
I recognize that the system is imperfect, and I wish that there were a different way to level the playing field. Making contributions to ACT and the MoveOn.org Voter Fund is the best approach that I have found. I have been an advocate of campaign- finance reform for almost a decade, including the legal defense of the current legislation. I recognize that every new regulation has unintended adverse consequences, but this does not mean that reform should be abandoned.
Clearly, the rules need to be updated in the light of the 2004 experience. Some good proposals have already surfaced, including one from the major sponsors of the current campaign-finance legislation. This bill should be supported.
Among other measures, it calls for an increase in the federal match for small contributions and would raise the spending limit for candidates who accept public funding to $75 million -- changes that would reduce the bias toward big-money donors. Free airtime for candidates is also important. This would reduce the cost of campaigns and the distorting effect of commercials.
George Soros is chairman of Soros Management Fund.
Original Link: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/7473855.htm
George Soros: Why I Gave
Politics
Soros writes an editorial for the Washington Post, justifying his $10 million donation to America Coming Together, and his $2.5 million donation to MoveOn.org. He says that he is complying with both the letter and the spirit of campaign contribution limitation laws, that his donations are "a pittance" when compared to conservative giving, and that he and other donors are simply trying to return our country to its "rightful place in the world."
The best part of the piece is his description of Bush's fundraising strategy, which centers on the dorkily-named giving categories of "Pioneers", who collect $100,000 in contributions from their friends (in legal $2,000 increments) and "Rangers", who collect $200,000. Can't you just see these people getting special certificates or plaques declaring them "Rangers In the Fight for American Supremacy"? These kinds of donations, Soros says, are essentially identical to the enormous corporate contributions that used to be legal, since they come from the same funding sources, both personal and corporate. His donations, however, are given to unaffiliated organizations, not to a party or candidate. He writes, "I have contributed to independent organizations that by law are forbidden to coordinate their activities with the political parties or candidates. That law minimizes or eliminates the ability to purchase influence in exchange for my contribution. Moreover, I don't seek such influence. My contributions are made in what I believe to be the common interest."
This distinction sounds a little nit-picky and deceptive, but he's totally right. America Coming Together does work for the common interest: their mission is to get more people registered to vote, regardless of party, though they also say they are "mobilizing voters to defeat Bush." What Soros and America Coming Together and the Republican Party all know is that when more people vote, Democrats have a better chance of winning. If democracy and participation start to work more effectively in this country, Bush will probably not get re-elected. (I can't tell you how happy and vindicated this makes me feel about the democratic process.) Soros is using this knowledge and his donations to ultimately benefit the Democrat party, but only indirectly. His transparency about his intentions also put him morally ahead of all these Pioneers and Rangers and their corporate checks.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
AI
