[Dialogue] About ACT's efforts

[jim rippey]

>From Jim Rippey in Bellevue, NE

Below are excerpts from a Washington Post story about activities of America Coming Together (ACT), an independent group determined to defeat George W. Bush. Barb and I have already contributed it but this makes me even more interested. The whole article is long. It can be accessed with this address: 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29645-2004Jul5?language=printer



Ground War, Steve Rosenthal Wages a $100 Million Battle to Line Up Democratic Votes 

By Ann Gerhart, Washington Post July 6, 2004; Page C01 

PHILADELPHIA

There is President Bush and John Kerry and the merry band of bragsters, pollsters, pontificators, image-shapers flashing around on the higher reaches of cable TV. These are the brand names and faces of American politics.

Then there is Steve Rosenthal, a middle-aged Jewish guy with a big belly who looks like he'd be happy to live in Takoma Park, which he does, and coach his kid's baseball team, which he does. In this presidential election, he may be the most important person you've never heard of. 

Rosenthal has $100 million at his disposal, no boss and only one job: to find, track and deliver Democrats to the polls come November. "Hopefully, a byproduct of this is that George Bush will end up back in Crawford and," he adds sardonically, "spend the next several years trying to figure out if he really did make mistakes." 

Usually, get-out-the-vote operations start after Labor Day. Money gets spread. Precinct captains get their big day to swagger around. Not this time. The difference is that Rosenthal, the former political director of the AFL-CIO, is already prowling around out there. He is setting up an elaborate war plan that has more than a thousand paid foot soldiers marching up to doors in 17 battleground states. They come armed with Palm handhelds loaded with voter registration data and streaming video about education and jobs. 

As head of America Coming Together, one of the best-funded political interest groups created after campaign finance reform, Rosenthal -- like the Republican National Committee -- has been at this for months. Like all ruthless fighters, he is not always nice...

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Rosenthal teamed up with Democratic fundraiser Ellen Malcolm, who had started Emily's List to fund pro-choice female candidates, and Harold Ickes, a senior aide during the Clinton presidency who masterminded Hillary Rodham Clinton's run for the Senate, and the trio formed America Coming Together. 

George Soros, the Hungarian who came to America with nothing and built a fortune estimated at $7 billion, had decided that defeating President Bush had become "the central focus of my life." Perhaps the best way to assure this, he decided after meeting Malcolm and Rosenthal, with the trio and seeing Rosenthal's PowerPoint presentation, was to pledge $10 million to their effort. Soros has persuaded other rich progressives to do the same. The group now has pledges and receipts totaling about $75 million toward a goal of $100 million that it is confident it will reach well before Election Day. There have been howls of protest from campaign finance watchdogs, editorial pages and the Republican National Committee that groups like this subvert the intent of the McCain-Feingold Act to reduce the influence of large donors. 

Rosenthal loves to argue this point.

"How? Look, there are two kinds of donors -- access donors and ideological donors. Our donors are ideological. We can't give them anything. We have no tickets to the inauguration, no Lincoln Bedroom, no photos with the president," he says, shrugging. "All we can give them is the change they want, and that's all they want."....