“Since 2003, Soros has spent more than $48 million funding media properties, including the infrastructure of news — journalism schools, investigative journalism and even industry organizations.”
— Dan Gainor, Vice President for Business and Culture, Media Research CenterDid Mitt Romney Mention That He Can Raise $10.25 Million in Eight Hours?
— New York magazine
Arrogance, vanity and myopia are not traits particular to Republicans, and one might even suppose that perhaps liberals are more prone to such personality flaws. Nevertheless we are struck by the sharp contrast between how George Soros employs his wealth — to build a media infrastructure for advancing his broad political agenda — and how wealthy Republicans spend their own money: To advance the narrow personal ambition of Mitt Romney.
Why are rich Republicans so clueless? They are shoveling money at a candidate who suffers tepid support among the GOP grassroots and is therefore unlikely to win the nomination. The only purpose served by their contributions would be to pay salaries for Romney campaign staff and fees to Romney’s consultants, and to buy airtime to broadcast Romney’s campaign ads.
So Romney’s wealthy contributors are clueless as per the political landscape for the 2012 presidential campaign. But they are also clueless as to the entire question of how best to spend their money if — as we might reasonably suspect — their general desire is to advance the Republican cause. What Soros does with his money is infinitely smarter than what Republicans do with theirs.
It was my friend Jimmie Bise Jr. who pointed this out in September 2009: During a single three-month span of that year, Republicans contributed $4.3 million to the doomed campaign of Charlie Crist.
How’s that workin’ out for ya?
Jimmie has calculated — and I agree with his calculations — that you could run a pretty spiffy little conservative New Media operation for $500,000 a year if you knew what you were doing. But the problem is connecting (a) people with $500,000 to (b) people who know what they’re doing in terms of online news.
If you grant that Jimmie and I are correct about this estimate, do the math yourself: For the $4 million that the permatanned RINO Charlie Crist collected during that single three-month span of 2009, you could fund eight spiffy little New Media operations for a year (or four such operations for two years). And FEC contribution limits do not apply to people making “investments” in news operations, so that the rich Republicans would not be restricted in their generosity toward New Media, as they are toward political candidates.
Soros has figured this out. Rich Republicans have not. Continue reading On Media, Money and Membership →
