ELECTION 2004
Democrats Launch
Anti-Nader Campaign

Through a combination of legal maneuvering and anti-Nader spin, Democrats hope to limit voters' choices and keep candidate Ralph Nader off the November ballot in key states.

By Walt Contreras Sheasby

LOS ANGELES --  May 28, 2004 -- Were it not for a loophole in the McCain-Feingold Act and the somersaults of defeated candidates Howard Dean, Gen. Wesley Clark, and Dick Gephardt, petitioners for Ralph Nader would have an easier time collecting signatures to put him on the ballot. The anti-Nader forces in the Democratic Party are being joined by former Nader supporters in what the maverick candidate calls a “cabal.”

Corporate Citizenship and the Cabal

Funding for the elaborate scheme to strip anti-war and Green voters from Nader comes from the corporate rich: George Soros, powerful currency speculator (Soros Fund Management LLC) and billionaire benefactor (Open Society Institute), his friend Peter Lewis, chairman of the Progressive Corp., Rob Glaser, founder and CEO of RealNetworks, Rob McKay, president of the McKay Foundation, and benefactors Lewis and Dorothy Cullman. (1)

These are the powerful fat cats who fund the so-called Section 527 groups that provided support to the candidates in the Democratic Party primaries, without officially being connected to either the candidate or the Party. Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code provides a loophole for fat cats to evade caps on political donations. With the primaries over, both the 527s and the former candidates are sitting on a ton of unused cash that can be used for monkey-wrenching both the Green Party voters and the independent ballot petitioning by Nader followers.

On the Air: The National Progress Fund propagandizes

The latest entry into the psy ops war against Nader is the National Progress Fund, which plans to run TV ads in six battleground states, featuring people who voted for Nader in 2000 who now say they regret their votes. A similar theme is projected on their website called TheNaderFactor.com. The 527 group, formed by major operatives in the Democratic Party, was announced at the very moment on May 19 that Nader was meeting with Kerry, a symbolic gesture equivalent to leaving a horse's head in Nader's bed. Nader spokesperson Kevin Zeese said "I think it is interesting that it was timed with our meeting." (2)

A preview of the first TV commercial can be seen at www.TheNaderFactor.com. Bob Schick, a high school English teacher from Ohio, says: ''Four years ago, I supported Ralph Nader because he stood for the issues I believed in: a clean environment, civil rights, and a sensible foreign policy,'' Schick says. ''But now, after seeing how quickly and thoroughly the Bush administration has wounded our country -- there's more pollution, an economy that sends our jobs overseas, and a war I have serious questions about -- I feel I made a mistake.'' (3)

The website urges other repentant Nader voters to contact the National Progress Fund to offer their own disavowal of Nader. "Slept with Nader woke up with Bush in 2000?" is one of the slogans on the site. The site is designed by Howard Dean’s former staff, and as one Deaniac commented, "Not to Kerry bash, but it wasn't too long ago when our answer to the "Dated Dean, Married Kerry" nasty bumpersticker was "Dated Dean, Married Kerry, Woke Up Next to Bush". (4)

The site declares it will create an online community of progressive democrats and Nader supporters, and will feature blog discussions, petitions on various issues, downloadable materials and other grassroots activities.

A senior Kerry aide stressed that the group is -- quote -- "completely independent of the campaign," but Nader has asked Kerry to disavow the effort to create dissension in the ranks of supporters using testimonials of former Nader voters who have repented. The group (the National Progress Fund) by law must stop short of asking visitors to support Kerry; so instead its focus is to blame Nader for the Bush election.

The new National Progress Fund brings together the key staff (and undoubtedly unspent cash) of the Howard Dean, Gen. Wesley Clark, and Dick Gephardt campaigns. The group is run by Tricia Enright, who was spokeswoman and communications director for former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, David Jones, chief fund-raiser and treasurer for Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, and John Hlinko, who led the Draft Wesley Clark internet movement. By using the staff and cash of his former rivals, Kerry gets to go around saying, "I'm not going to ask Nader to drop out -- he has as much right to run -- but I'm going to make the case for voting for me." (5) In the meantime, the 527 makes the slightly more negative case with the powerful mea culpa testimonials of regretful Nader voters.

Enright said they planned to start airing targeted television ads next week in as many as six states. The fund will focus its advertising firepower on six states that were decided by two percentage points or less in 2000 -- Wisconsin, New Mexico, Florida, New Hampshire, Iowa, and Oregon.

The ads will run first in Wisconsin and New Mexico, states where there are many Green or independent voters. The first ads will coincide with the Green Party National Convention in Milwaukee June 23-28, which may mean that delegates will be meeting in a climate where anti-Nader sentiment has been stoked by TV commercials. The Greens will be deciding between support for Nader or for the low-key campaign of David Cobb. In New Mexico the urgency calls into question Gov. Bill Richardson’s dismissal last February that Nader "has no movement. Nobody's backing him. The Greens aren't backing him." (6)

While these negative ads intervening in the politics of opposition groups may seem a new development in the U.S., the tactic has been used by George Soros in a score of other countries. Under U.S. campaign laws, it is illegal to influence an election through the use of monies from foreign countries, and while MoveOn.org founder, screen-saver magnate Wes Boyd, said the groups accepts no foreign donations, virtually all the Soros money going into the anti-Nader ads is from operations abroad. (7)

On the Ground: America Votes intimidates

As CBS has reported, there are three other 527 groups already involved in the anti-Nader effort. Democrats clearly hope Nader doesn't get on the ballot, particularly in the battleground states. According to Sarah Leonard, spokesperson for the Democratic organizations America Votes, ACT and the Media Fund, they are keeping an eye on Nader's efforts. "If we think it gets to the point where we need to step in and mobilize to make sure he doesn't get on the ballot, then we will," she says. (8)

America Votes (527) is an umbrella group for coordinating other 527s. Twenty-two of the organizations have each kicked in $50,000 to finance America Votes, which is run by Cecile Richards (daughter of Ann Richards), a Brown University alumni and former top aide to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).

America Coming Together (527), also known as ACT, is a collaboration between many Dem powerhouse issue groups and labor unions focusing on grassroots voter contact. ACT has received $5 million contributions from financier Soros and his wife, Susan Weber Soros, and $3 million frin insurance magnate Peter B. Lewis of the Progressive Corp. Soros says "ACT is an effective way to mobilize civil society, to convince people to go to the polls and vote for candidates who will reassert the values of the greatest open society in the world." (9)

The Media Fund (527), financed in part by billionaire George Soros, is run by former Clinton aide Harold Ickes, and has joined forces with ACT to raise money. While ACT is the major 'ground war' vehicle for the Democratic groups, the Media Fund will finance radio and television commercials.

CNN reported that the group is trying to get the Trial Lawyers to pay for the anti-Nader ads -- and that there are efforts to recruit lawyers to try and use the courts and legal process to block Nader's ballot access drive.

Nader said the effort sounds like an assault on freedom of speech. ''I would advise them to cease and desist,'' he said. ''Since we do everything legally to get on the ballot, I don't see what they can do,'' he said. ''They're better advised to spend their money to try to persuade the millions of Democratic voters who supported Bush in 2000 to vote for their ticket.'' (10)

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1. Walt Contreras Sheasby, George Soros and the Rise of the Neo-centrics (CITIZINE)

2. Jim Geraghty, Kerry Spot 24/7, National Review Online.

3. Nedra Pickler, Kerry Doesn't Ask Nader to Bow Out, EDT, Associated Press News Wires, May 19, 9:55 PM.

4. Blog for America, May 19, 2004.

5. Nader: Uniter, not divider, May 19, 2004.

6. CBS News, Nader To Run For President, Feb. 22, 2004.

7. CNN.com, Soros, groups target Bush,
Friday, December 26, 2003.

8. CBS News Online. April 30, 2004.

9. Disinfopedia "America Coming Together" (ACT)

10. Nedra Pickler, ibid.

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