Campaign finance: creating the "matrix" for Media-ville

Two stories in The Hill and NRO give valuable insights into the emerging architecture of American political activity. From the looks of it, what is the emerging has turned the intent in McCain-Feingold's campaign finance reform on its head and – perversely – handed over the machinery of political activity to professional campaign industry insiders and their rich benefactors who are now able to cover their tracks so no one can see who is paying for what.  Moreover, this is all being done at the expense of the traditional Republican and Democratic parties whose grass roots office holders – and the politically stabilizing consensus building they represent – are being by-passed and rendered to secondary status in the process. 

In the last election cycle, McCain-Feingold reforms caused campaign money to find its own level.  The beneficiaries were so-called 527s, who raised and spent millions to promote causes favored either by the Rs or Ds. The obvious distortions of the law are being remedied now. But left untouched are entities called C4s which will now perform political campaign communications but without the requirements to disclose who is paying for it. Two the C4s in the wings ready to go are: Harold Ickes’ Protect our Paycheck for the left and for the right, units of Progress for America. York money quote:

After years of campaign-finance reform, we are entering an era in which a donor can give an unlimited amount of money to an unaccountable group without any public disclosure. Before McCain-Feingold, big donors gave fully-disclosed money to the political parties, which, because they represented the entire coalition that made up the Democratic or Republican parties, were far more accountable to the public than the new, outside, groups became. Now, new C4s … do not even have to reveal where they get their money — a central tenet of clean campaigning. And it was all done in the name of reform.

Quillnews is not an election law expert, tax lawyer or corporate controller, so readers  should not expect balanced nuance or footnotes here. However the experience I do have persuades me every campaign begins with two questions: 1) what is the objective, and 2) who is going to pay for it? Quillnews believes the answers to these two questions are what provides the kindling, spark and fuel for the massive corporate communications machines that manufacture images and arguments in Media-ville and that causes so many facts of Real-life to be distorted in the public square.  In other words, money makes the talk in Media-ville.

And is here that the new articles and other new publications are instructive.  What do we know so far?  The left - which has taken to calling itself progressive - is taking a page from the right's playbook. In September 2004, Lewis Lapham wrote a Harpers magazine article called "Tentacles of Rage." The article was reviewed by Slate.  Both are worth the time.  In the Harpers piece, Rob Stein, an Ivy League Clintonista who now toils in investment banking, was quoted saying he had studied what he called The Republican Message Machine - "perhaps the most potent, independent institutionalized apparatus ever assembled in a democracy to promote one belief system." The origins were in the late 70's and early 80's when conservative ideas, championed by Ronald Reagan and promoted by a range of free market enthusiasts, came to dominate American political life and, importantly, win elections.

Lapham reported Stein had prepared a 38-page Power-Point presentation entitled "The Conservative Message Machine's Money Matrix" which outlined Stein's view of how this was complished and which he began pitching more than a year ago to party insiders, journalists, and others who will help recruit liberal millionaires to fund a Democratic propaganda mill to counter the Republican one. The left was impressed with the right's fund raising and agenda setting capacity and tried to repeat it. The story of the left's efforts in the 2004 campaign is detailed in The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy by NRO's Byron York. Another account called The Shadow Party (II, III, IV, V, VI) by Richard Poe was published in Hard-Right Horowitz' FrontPageMag.

Now after the D defeat, the Stein agenda is back. The article in The Hill reports that Stein, who has now set up The Democracy Alliance, convened an invitation-only meeting in Scottsdale recently where 70 venture capitalists, left-leaning moneymen and a select few D.C. strategists assembled to plot how to build progressive idea factories and campaign promotion machinery to match the right. 

Among the promoters of Stein’s idea is George Soros, who pumped $27 million to D’s 527s last year, and who led the discussoin.  Soros and Stein instructed the gathered millionaires and billionaires, many from the high tech industry in how to proceed.  The idea is that these money guys, now called The Phoenix Group, will pay for a range of new think tanks and also for new methods of communications. To begin, The Democracy Alliance will act as a clearinghouse for ideas and funds. The process will be for Stein’s group to channel much of its money to new organizations and to existing ones such as John Podesta’s Center for American Progress and David Brock’s Media Matters for America.  Others in the room were New Democrat Network president Simon Rosenberg, and former Clinton spokesman, Mike McCurry.

What makes this fun is that nobody will talk about this. The names of those attending is unavailable. Stein's spokesman refused to give details about the meeting, or discuss  specific plans. Like the Danny DeVito character said in LA Confidential, "it was all very hush hush..."  Though Stein's spokesman said "transparency" will be a priority.  Hmmm. 

For starters, I think we can assume that the five largest 527 bankrollers in the "progressive" camp from the last go around will be involved.  In addition to Soros, who gets all the attention, are Peter Lewis, chairman of Progressive Insurance, California investors Herbert and Marion Sandler, who are co-CEO's of Golden West Financial Corp, and a B-list Hollywood mogul Steve Bing. These five spent $78 million on Democratic related campaigns in the last cycle, more than twice the amount spent by the top five Republican givers. 

Quillnews suggestion to MSM political reporters: Finding out about these people and the rest of The Phoenix Group and their agenda should be neat fun. Some of these "progressive" bankers even may be as interesting as that Bing guy, who may be a B-list movie boy, but is an A-list player. This guy is tabloid catnip!  Zowie. What makes Bing such tabloid fun is that he is just the kind of money-guy lefties like. Last summer, Instipundit quoted an article about Bing which said:

The Center for Responsive Politics calculates Bing's (pre-McCain-Feingold) 2002-cycle donations to the Democrats at $8.7 million. Recently George Soros came to Hollywood to raise money in a series of private billionaire-to-billionaire meetings for America Coming Together and The Media Fund, the coordinated anti-Bush organizations created to fit within the strictures of campaign-finance laws, to which he has promised $10 million. A kind of  shadow Democratic Party, ACT and The Media Fund (under the joint fundraising umbrella of Victory Campaign 2004) are 527 organizations: they independently raise and spend money to identify voters and buy air time for advertising. These and other 527 organizations, on the left and the right, have come in for a lot of heat, because contributions are unlimited so long as the organization does not communicate with any candidate or official party committee—and everyone suspects that the concept "does not communicate" has been vitiated by Talmudic parsing. I'm told that after seeing Soros, Bing upped his contribution from $2 million to nearly $7 million, just like that. No wonder the constant refrain from the politically connected in Hollywood is "What we need more than anything is more Steve Bings."

The title of the September 2004 article in The Atlantic was "The Hollywood Campaign -- Want big money to get elected to national office? If you're a Democrat, you need to head for the hills—Beverly Hills." The author of that article was Eric Alterman, an author, MSNBC blogger, and professor who is also employed as a Senior Fellow at Podesta's Center for American Progress, which Stein says will likely be getting a bunch of Phoenix Group's funds to promote a progressive agenda. Small world. Like Stein said: a matrix, even. Stay tuned...