Billionaires line up against Bush

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Billionaires Back
Online Activists'
Anti-Bush Ads
Soros, Lewis Pledge up to $5 Million
In Matching Gifts to Fund Campaign

By DAVID BANK
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

MoveOn.org, the liberal online-activist organization that has had surprising success raising money from small donors, has landed two big ones -- billionaires George Soros and Peter Lewis.

Mr. Soros, the head of Soros Fund Management LLC, and Mr. Lewis, the chairman of Progressive Corp., a major auto insurer, together have pledged as much as $5 million to MoveOn's "voter fund," which is launching a series of television ads critical of the Bush administration's leadership on the Iraq war, the economy and education. The first ad has begun airing in West Virginia and four others have been produced.

Messrs. Soros and Lewis have pledged 50 cents for every dollar raised toward the voter-fund campaign's $10 million goal. For Mr. Soros, the contribution is part of a broader effort to influence next year's presidential election. The international financier has pledged $10 million to a $75 million get-out-the-vote campaign called Americans Coming Together and is providing $1 million a year for three years to the Center for American Progress, a new think tank in Washington headed by John Podesta, White House chief of staff during the Clinton administration. Mr. Lewis also is contributing to those efforts.

For MoveOn, a nonprofit founded in Berkeley, Calif., the matching-gift pledge is the latest in a series of fund-raising windfalls. Last December, the group sent out an e-mail appeal seeking $25,000 to buy a newspaper ad opposing the looming war in Iraq; within a few days, approximately $400,000 had come in. "We realized we were definitely missing something," said Wes Boyd, the group's president.

The voter-fund drive is MoveOn's biggest so far. The campaign's first two e-mails to the group's 1.7 million members brought in about $1.2 million each. A third pitch offered copies of a new documentary about prewar intelligence on Iraq; organizers expected to sell a few thousand, but quickly received orders for 22,000. In the end, the group's $50,000 investment in the film's production netted proceeds of more than $860,000. So far, the voter-fund campaign has raised $3.65 million, not including $500,000 already received from Mr. Soros.

The voter fund is what is known as a "527" organization, meaning that under federal tax law it can engage in political activities as long as they aren't coordinated with candidates or parties. MoveOn's fund-raising success comes as former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean also is tapping the Internet for donations to his presidential campaign.

"It's a different way of going at it," says Mr. Boyd. "We look at what we do as providing a service. People want to make a difference. They want to be heard. We try to provide the means." The group co-sponsored last weekend's speech by former Vice President Al Gore on the Bush administration's record on civil liberties. Mr. Boyd now is seeking funds to reprint excerpts of the speech.

He acknowledged that adding large donors to MoveOn's base of smaller contributors -- who on average give less than $50 -- could compromise its grass-roots reputation. But he said the matching-fund arrangement is intended "to pull out the hundreds of thousands or millions of people we need to be participating in the system."

Mr. Lewis, in a statement, said, "The MoveOn Voter Fund is an effective way to inform public opinion and bring new people into the game." A spokesman emphasized Mr. Soros's long record of encouraging civic participation, saying MoveOn's members have "shown their willingness to put their money where their mouths are, and George is supporting them."

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