 Newsmaker Interviews By Bill Steigerwald August 02, 2006
But in their new book, "The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party" (Nelson Current), coming out Aug. 8, Horowitz and Poe set out to expose what their publisher says are "the influential and powerful Americans secretly stirring up disunion and disloyalty in the shifting shadows of the Democratic Party." Horowitz, a long-ago radical Marxist who is now the tireless and articulate conservative nemesis of the Left, is a columnist, author and president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (horowitzfreedomcenter.org) in Los Angeles. I talked to him July 26. Q: What is the Shadow Party? A: The Shadow Party is a George Soros conglomerate. George Soros, a billionaire, has engineered campaign finance reform, by pouring tens of millions of dollars - and getting others to do it too - into the campaign finance reform movement. What this did was it limited the ability of the political parties to raise money. As soon as the campaign finance laws came into place, they had a loophole -- and naturally they would, because Soros was behind this for private organizations like MoveOn.org, called 527s, that could collect money. Soros managed to put together a coalition, which we call the Shadow Party, which accounted for about $300 million in the Democratic campaign. Actually, it was much more than that. He put together a group that orchestrated media ads, so that meant that his groups, since they were in place before the democratic nominee was even chosen, were able to shape the message of the John Kerry campaign and, in effect, control the campaign that way. But through another organization they have, Americans Coming Together, they also put together the ground war. ACT was composed of big government unions, like SEIU, and teacher unions. They were able to produce 100,000 campaign workers and huge amounts of money to knock on doors and get out the vote. Because Soros and the group he put together control both the ground war and the air war of Democratic campaigns, that means that every elected Democratic official has got to pay attention to what they say. Q: Your book is just an attempt to throw light on Shadow Party? A: It gives the history of the Shadow Party. It gives a biography of George Soros who this man is, how this group came about and details how they operate. There are a lot of profiles in the book. If I name the people, you won't know the names. You've probably never heard of Wade Rathke, but he's the head of ACORN, which is the biggest radical organization in the United States. It controls many American cities. For example, one of the things they've done is it has gotten 359 American cities to pass resolutions that they will not cooperate with homeland security. Q: What is new to the Shadow Party that your book adds? A: First of all, it goes inside George Soros. You have to understand who this man is, because he can be portrayed in many ways philanthropist, capitalist. In fact, he says that the capitalist system has replaced communism as the greatest threat. Second, he says America is the greatest obstacle to world justice and stability. His agenda is what he calls "to burst the bubble of American supremacy." In other words, he's a lefty. We've also described the radical components of the Soros operation. This is not just something you talk about in electoral terms, as though it is the usual special interests coming together. At the base of this is a grass-roots movement which has actually bankrupted the city of New York, which they did by loading the welfare roles. The core of it was called the National Welfare Rights Organization and their strategy was to recruit people to the welfare system in order to break it. Q: It's safe to say that the Shadow Party couldn't exist without George Soros? A: Yes, Soros put it together. He has bought together elements of the philanthropy world, the political world, the business world, the union world and the world of radical street politics and created a juggernaut. It is the Democrat Party, in a way. No Democrat can certainly be elected without it. He's made an alliance of course with Hillary Clinton and the Clinton team, which is the organization called the Center for American Progress, which is run by Clinton's former chief of staff, John Podesta, and there is a whole constellation of organizations around that solidifies his power. So there really is no other center of power that is significant in the Democratic Party anymore. It's odd that the book "The Shadow Party" is coming out the same day of the Connecticut primary. The mere fact that Joe Lieberman, who is a three-term senator, an incumbent, and who was on the presidential ticket of the Democratic Party in 2000, should be fighting for his political life against these forces shows how powerful the people in the Shadow Party are. Q: What has been the Shadow Party's biggest exploit so far? A: They lost the election, that's true, in 2004. But they ran it. John Kerry was an appendage of what they did. Q: What is the Shadow Party ultimately trying to do? A: Soros said his number one goal is to unseat Bush." It's social justice, is the way you describe it. What they want is a form of socialism. They don't articulate it as such, but if you read their statements and as we show in the book, their agenda really is socialist. It is to convert the war on terror into a criminal operation. It is to withdraw from Iraq, which would let Iraq fall to the terrorists. It is to make America part of the World Court, to institute world government. Soros is technically an American but he is very hostile towards the United States. Q: There are rightwing Republicans who try to influence elections and get bills passed, etc. What makes this more sinister than what the Republicans or right-wingers do? A: Well, first of all, it is much more organized. There are obvious constituencies in the Republican coalition, who have different agendas, but in the end they compromise and they are part of the national party. Here, you have part of a party that is not really visible. Very few Americans, very few Democratic voters, know this even exists. It's working behind the scenes and its agendas are quite radical in a way that I don't think any of the Republican constituencies are. Most Republican constituencies known to me, in the end, they compromise and they vote. Q: Is the Shadow Party getting stronger or weaker as we approach 2008? A: In my view, it's much stronger. This Lieberman thing even shocked me. Think of it from a political point of view. You're an old style pol, OK? You understand that national political battles are won and lost in the center. Everybody understands that. So here you have a guy, Joe Lieberman the one Democrat who is a really prominent supporter of the war. So he makes your party look like a big tent. About 80 percent of Democrats are against the war. But there are 20 percent who are for the war. You want Lieberman in your party. He can't affect your majority. He's not going to change your vote. But these people are such zealots -- they are religious in their passion -- that they want to get rid of him. And they are going out to get rid of a statesman of their party. It makes no sense in terms
of ordinary American politics. It makes a lot of sense in terms
of SP politics. These are people on a mission. They are not thinking
straight on this issue. Soros himself is a cleverer person. I
don't want to give the idea that Soros makes every decision.
It's not that kind of party. He's put together a coalition of
forces. He does manage a lot of the money. But what he has done
that is unique, in my view, in the history of American politics,
is that he has put together a coalition of billionaires, of giant
unions, of street radicals, and of seasoned political operatives.
It's a never-before-seen combination in American politics
©Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, All Rights Reserved. Distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc. to subscribers for publication. E-mail Bill at bsteigerwald@tribweb.com
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