Continuing my series on the excellent book written by David Horowitz and Richard Poe entitled "The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party" in which I excerpt key portions to highlight the danger America faces from the new left.
In the first post I posted about the overview the authors gave of The Shadow Party, the second post was about the first of Seven Sisters comprising the Shadow Party, MoveOn.org and then onto Hillary’s thinktank – the Center for American Progress in this post. The third sister, America Votes, was highlighted in this post, the fourth – America Coming Together in this post, the fifth – Joint Victory Campaign 2004 in this post, the sixth sister – The Media Fund, and finally onto the last of the sisters that make up this Shadow Party and probably one of the most important – The Thunder Road Group:
Launched in early 2004, The Thunder Road Group was the last of the Seven Sisters to appear, but arguably the most vital of the lot. The Boston Globe called Thunder Road the "nerve center" of the Shadow Party – its unofficial headquarters: "[The Thunder Road Group] is an operation unlike any other in politics, devising strategy, message, and public relations services for the 527s."
A soup-to-nuts political consultancy, Thunder Road combined the roles of strategic planning, polling, opposition research, covert operations and public relations. It coordinated strategy for The Media Fund, America Coming Together and America Votes. Its founder Jim Jordan was frequently quoted in the press as a spokesman for other Seven Sister groups.
Jordon is an attorney long active in Washington as a Democrat spin doctor. Among other high-profile assignments, Jordan handled press relations for the Senate committee investigating DNC fundraising in 1997 and for the House Judiciary Committee during the Clinton impeachment. Riding the whirlwind of Clinton-era scandals gave Jordan a zest for what he calls "intense political, hand-to-hand combat."
Jordon attained his highest public profile when he served for nearly a year as John Kerry’s campaign manager. This lasted from December 2002 to November 2003, when Kerry’s sinking poll numbers led him to fire Jordan and his top staff and replace them with a team provided by his political patron Ted Kennedy. Mary Beth Cahill, Stephanie Cutter, Bob Shrum and other well-known Kennedy operatives quicky took control of the Kerry campaign. Former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen, national chairwoman of Kerry’s campaign, was credited with masterminding the putsch. New York Times columnist William Safire commented on Kerry’s new chief, "Cahill has impeccable far-left credentials, from Emily’s List fund-raising to Representative Barney Frank’s staff."
Less than a month passed before Harold Ickes and Ellen Malcolm recruited Jordan to handle publicity and strategy for the Shadow Party (specifically for The Media Fund, ACT and America Votes). In order to handle the growing volume of work pouring in from his newfound friends, Jordan launched his own company in early 2004. He named it Thunder Road after a Bruce Springsteen lyric: "It’s a town full of losers, and I’m pulling out of her to win."
By the end of July, Jordan had already collected $1.7 million in consulting fees in addition to his $85,000 salary at the time. Jordan’s group was involved in "opposition research" – the term of art for dirt-digging among political consultants. Some reports indicate that Jordan’s covert operation went beyond the garden variety of Washington smear-mongering. For instance, the American Spectator reported that Jordan may have helped stage-manage the media circus that disrupted the work of the 9-11 Commission, nearly bringing the investigation to a standstill.
Even before Condoleezza Rice made her opening statement to the Commission, Thunder Road operatives began bombarding reporters with e-mails attempting to discredit her. The e-mails continued for the entire three hours that Rice testified. The American Spectator reported that a staffer for America Coming Together said, "We’d heard that [former National Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard] Clark had some help with writing his testimony and in prepping for the questioning…the rumor is that he ended up getting some help from Kerry’s people, but indirectly through Thunder Road."
Richard Clark’s testimony to the Commission later turned out to be rife with contradictions and misinformation, as the Commission’s final report made clear. If indeed the Thunder Road Group helped prepare that testimony, then it helped obstruct an investigation of grave importance to America’s national security.
To conclude this series on The Shadow Party the authors wrote a few paragraphs that explains not the how Soros created this party, but the why:
Why did Soros spend seven years and millions of dollars pushing a soft-money ban through Congress, only to turn around in 2004 and mount an equally ambitious effort – through the Shadow Party – to circumvent that ban and bankroll the John Kerry campaign? Many critics have accused Soros of "hypocrisy" for playing both sides of the McCain-Feingold fence. These critics misunderstood the subtlety of Soros’ strategy.
By pushing McCain-Feingold through Congress, Soros cut off the Democrats’ soft-money supply. By forming the Shadow Party, Soros offered the Democrats an alternate source – one which he personally controlled . As a result, the Democrats are now heavily – perhaps irretrievably – dependent on Soros. It seems reasonable to suppose that from its inception, campaign finance reform was a Soros power play to gain control of the Democratic Party.
And it worked. The far left have complete control of that party and I do not see them getting out of that gutter anytime soon. Soros is growing old but his two oldest sons are slowly taking over the empire. They have taken over the day-to-day investment decisions of the Soros Fund Management and Jonathan Soros is heavily involved with MoveOn, while Robert Soros is involved in state politics in New York.
Are they the new "behind the scenes" dynasty?
I shudder to think.
See author page
