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Rdtf
CNO
Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2209
Location: BUSHville
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 Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 1:32 pm Post subject: Rich Liberals Vow to Fund Think Tanks |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/06/AR2005080600848.html
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Rich Liberals Vow to Fund Think Tanks
Aim Is to Compete With Conservatives
By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 7, 2005; Page A01
At least 80 wealthy liberals have pledged to contribute $1 million or more apiece to fund a network of think tanks and advocacy groups to compete with the potent conservative infrastructure built up over the past three decades.
The money will be channeled through a new partnership called the Democracy Alliance, which was founded last spring -- the latest in a series of liberal initiatives as the Democratic Party and its allies continue to struggle with the loss of the House and the Senate in 1994 and the presidency in 2000. Many influential Democratic contributors were left angry and despairing over the party's poor showing in last year's elections, and are looking for what they hope will be more effective ways to invest their support.
Financial commitments totaling at least $80 million over the next five years generated by the Democracy Alliance in recent months -- at a time when some liberal groups, such as the George Soros-backed America Coming Together, are floundering -- suggest that the group is becoming a player in the long-term effort to reinvigorate the left. The group has a goal of raising $200 million -- a sum that would inevitably come in part at the expense of more traditional Democratic groups, although alliance officials say donors have committed to maintaining past contribution levels.
Alliance chairman Steven Gluckstern, a retired investment banker, said that President Bush's victory over Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) last year after millions of dollars had been poured into pro-Democratic "527" groups caused many contributors to think that a dramatically new approach is needed.
"It wasn't only the failure to win, it was the question 'What does it take to win?' " Gluckstern said. "Among the lessons learned was that to bring back the progressive majority in this country is not just a periodic election investment strategy."
The Democracy Alliance will act as a financial clearing house. Its staff members and board of directors will develop a lineup of established and proposed groups that they believe will develop and promote ideas on the left. To fulfill their million-dollar pledge, each partner must agree to give $200,000 or more a year for at least five years to alliance-endorsed groups.
The alliance is the brainchild of longtime Democratic strategist Rob Stein, who spent years studying conservative groups -- in particular their success in sustaining GOP politicians and achieving many of their policy goals. Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, is working with Stein and is a leading promoter of his effort.
Rosenberg said liberals and Democrats now face a conservative "information-age Tammany Hall, a 21st century political machine, that is simply better than what we have on our side.
"The infrastructure we have was built for a different time and mission. It was built around the congressional majority we had for 60 years in the 20th century, the labor movement and the urban-ethnic city machines," he added.
As alliance officials see it, many liberal groups are designed to protect an agenda that was enacted by past Democratic majorities -- as opposed to generating new ideas and communication strategies to win support from voters who do not belong to labor or other traditionally Democratic constituencies.
Among those on the board are Ann S. Bowers, founding trustee of the Noyce Foundation and former executive at Intel Corp.; Albert C. Yates, former president of Colorado State University; and California high-tech entrepreneur Davidi Gilo.
The goal of the alliance, according to organizers, is to foster the growth of liberal or left-leaning institutions equipped to take on prominent think tanks on the right, including the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution, the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute, as well as such training centers as the Leadership Institute and the Young America's Foundation.
Almost all the alliance partners have been active donors of the Democratic Party and liberal interest groups. Many said they have concluded that their spending to date has lacked strategic coherence.
"There never has been an organized or coordinated look at connecting the dots of the progressive movement," said San Francisco businessman Mark Buell. He and his wife, Esprit de Corps founder Susie T. Buell, are major Democratic donors. Mark Buell, an alliance board member, said: "For 40 years, we had a voice somewhere, the White House, Congress, the Senate. For the first time, we find ourselves without a voice."
"To be effective in the 21st century in promoting your beliefs, it is necessary to have a financially secure institutional infrastructure that has the capacity to promote consistently and coherently a set of ideas, policies and messages," Stein said. "We understand that it's very hard to promote a belief system and to be operationally high performing if you don't have multi-year funding."
The shift of big money givers to the alliance poses a threat to the survival of such pro-Democratic independent groups as America Coming Together and the Media Fund. These two groups depended on many of the same donors to raise $196.7 million in 2003 and 2004. ACT recently announced that it is closing state offices and laying off most staff members. Democratic sources said its long-term survival is in doubt.
Soros, the billionaire financier, was the most prominent backer of the 2004 Democratic groups, but he has assumed only a modest role in the Democracy Alliance. He has stopped donating to ACT.
There has been a flourishing of new, pro-Democratic think tanks and advocacy groups in recent years. Clinton administration chief of staff John D. Podesta established the Center for American Progress; former Democratic congressional aide David Sirota recently set up the state-oriented Progressive Legislative Action Network; and author David Brock helped create Media Matters for America last year, among others. All these groups are potential recipients of money from alliance partners.
In addition, the number of liberal bloggers on the Web has been growing at a fast pace, and their blogs have become both central forums for debate over party strategies and hugely successful vehicles for campaign fundraising, including raising through online contributions more than two thirds of the $750,000 used in the surprisingly competitive House campaign of Democrat Paul Hackett in Ohio. Rosenberg has created the New Politics Institute, an organization that works with bloggers.
Alliance organizers said they are seeking to avoid involvement in the ideological disputes that have plagued Democrats in recent years. But it may prove difficult to avoid them when the list of organizations eligible for contributions is drafted.
Stein has spent considerable time in the midst of internal Democratic wars, having served as chief of staff to the Clinton-Gore transition in 1992 and strategic adviser to former Democratic National Committee chairman Ron Brown. In recent years, he has become a venture capitalist.
Jockeying for cash among possible recipient organizations has already begun. Robert L. Borosage, director of the liberal Campaign for America's Future, said the alliance will fund a "set of institutions in this city to be in the national debate, and we would like to be one of them."
Stein, who closely examined the finances of institutions on the right and left over the past two years, contends that there is a huge financial imbalance favoring conservatives that he puts at $295 million vs. $75 million.
In 2003, the 19 progressive organizations with budgets exceeding $1 million spent a total of $75 million, he said. In contrast, the 24 national think tanks on the right had $170 million in spending, along with state-based policy centers' $50 million and campus-based conservative policy organizations' $75 million to $100 million, according to Stein.
Liberal groups have been disproportionately dependent on one-year foundation grants for specific projects, Stein said, while the money flowing to conservative groups has often involved donors' long-term commitments with no strings attached. Stein noted that of 200 major conservative donors, about half sit on the boards of the think tanks they give to, increasing the strength of their commitment. |
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Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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| Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 4:06 pm Post subject: |
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In order to stem their political hemorrhaging, they must come to the realization that it is their "message" and not the "medium". This is a near impossibility for intransigent, emotion-driven, self-absorbed, pie-eyed socialist "thinkers" who are incapable of seeing a political forest through the trees.
You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, no matter how much $$$ you throw at it...and Americans instinctively understand that the source of our greatness is individual effort, not wealth re-distribution. |
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jwb7605
Rear Admiral
Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 690
Location: Colorado
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Navy_Navy_Navy
Admin
Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 5777
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| Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 7:49 pm Post subject: |
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SPLORF!!!! 
Good thing I didn't have coffee in my mouth, or I'd be billing you for a new keyboard. 
| Quote: | | Democrats Raise $80 Million to Fund 'Thinking' |
Well, that'll be a real switch, won't it?
Scrappleface is always good, isn't it?
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Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
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coldwarvet
Admiral
Joined: 03 Jun 2004
Posts: 1125
Location: Minnetonka, MN
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| Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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Since when does it cost money to think. It seems like their salution for everything. If it's broke throw money at it, that will fix it.
CWV
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Last edited by coldwarvet on Mon Aug 08, 2005 2:41 am; edited 1 time in total |
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GM Strong
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 18 Sep 2004
Posts: 1579
Location: Penna
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| Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:35 am Post subject: |
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Would it not be more accurate to call them Emote Tanks in the Liberal case??? Kind of like encounter groups where they can Kumbaya all day or is this being redundant. If you don't know what you stand for, how can you think about it??     
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PhantomSgt
Vice Admiral
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 972
Location: GUAM, USA
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| Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 7:14 am Post subject: |
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I can see it now, groups of thoughtful Democrats sitting around in focus groups deciding what to think about.
Of course they will all be wearing hats made from aluminum foil so those sneaky Republicans can't read their minds.
I understand the Main Tank Farm will be located in Big Sur, California so the commute from San Francisco and Berkley is not beyond the range of their electric vehicles. Some leftover Hippies who were found last year living in the area while in a stoned stupor, generously donated the land for the Tank Farm.
The Hippies were still protesting the Vietnam War since they had not received word the War had ended some thirty years before. The only comment their leader; Rainbow Colors had after hearing the news was “Cool Man! Want to smoke a Doobie?”
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PhantomSgt
Vice Admiral
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 972
Location: GUAM, USA
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| Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 7:30 am Post subject: |
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| PhantomSgt wrote: | I can see it now, groups of thoughtful Democrats sitting around in focus groups deciding what to think about.
Of course they will all be wearing hats made from aluminum foil so those sneaky Republicans can't read their minds.
I understand the Main Tank Farm will be located in Big Sur, California so the commute from San Francisco and Berkley is not beyond the range of their electric vehicles. Some leftover Hippies who were found last year living in the area while in a stoned stupor, generously donated the land for the Tank Farm.
The Hippies were still protesting the Vietnam War since they had not received word the War had ended some thirty years before. The only comment their leader; Rainbow Colors had after hearing the news was “Cool Man! Want to smoke a Doobie?”
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Update Big Sur, California. The Democratic Party was evicted today from a parcel of land they acquired for their West Coast Think Tank. Apparently there was some question as to what party really owned the land. The Democrats were furious when they tried to explain they had traded for the land with twenty-four dollars worth of Love Beads and two kilos of the finest Weed California has to offer.
The ACLU immediately took up the case threatening to file for immanent domain for the public good. After preparing documents for filing in court they discovered one Hillary Rodham of the Whitewater Corporation owned the land. The ACLU immediately dropped the case and advised their clients to withdraw all claims.
A local realtor who handled the land sale was asked why Ms. Rodham had purchased the tract. The unnamed realtor explained she had purchased it several years ago as a future site for her Presidential Library.
AP BS UPI Non News Corp.
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