WASHINGTON — Republicans had just gained control of the Senate and fattened their majority in the House. Surveying the wreckage of the 2002 elections, Democrats cried foul.
They blamed, in part, the right wing's deep pockets. They said advocacy groups clogged the nation's airwaves with venom. And they railed about conservative talk radio and its power to turn out the vote.
"We see it in foreign countries and we think, 'Well, my God, how can this religious fundamentalism become so violent?' " said Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle in a postelection analysis with reporters. "Well, it's that same shrill rhetoric, that same shrill power that motivates."
Now, a year out from the 2004 elections, Democrats have stopped complaining. Instead, they have their own billionaires pledged to the cause, plotting to mimic the think tanks, advocacy groups and media outlets that have given conservatives a political edge.
The left's new firepower owes something to President Bush, who provokes visceral loathing in liberals, much as Bill Clinton did in conservatives. It owes even more to the McCain-Feingold finance reform law, which bans wealthy individuals from making soft-money contributions directly to political parties -- contributions that the Democrats relied on heavily. Big donors are instead limited only by their imaginations, free to fund corollary efforts they think might benefit their political allies.
So George Soros, the liberal financier who has given away nearly $5 billion to promote democracy in the former Soviet Union, is giving $10 million to America Coming Together, a group working to get out progressive votes in 17 pivotal states. With Peter B. Lewis, a Cleveland-based insurance billionaire, Soros has pledged $5 million to MoveOn.org, an Internet antiwar group.
Joel Hyatt, founder of the Hyatt Legal Services chain of storefront legal clinics and a onetime candidate for the Senate from Ohio, is backing former Vice President Al Gore's bid to start a new youth-oriented cable network to counter the influence of Fox News. Mark Walsh, a former AOL executive who served as chief technology advisor to the Democratic National Committee, has purchased a radio network from two Chicago venture capitalists with hopes of launching an alternative to conservative talk radio.
