"Soros,Brock and the always evil Paul Begala build $40M war chest to dig up dirt and play dirty tricks on Mc Cain !"
Wealthy Democrats are preparing a four-month, $40 million media campaign centered on attacks on Sen. John McCain. And it will be led by David Brock, the former investigative reporter who first gained fame in the 1990s as a right-wing, anti-Clinton journalist.
The planned campaign is the product of a shakeup in the top ranks of the struggling independent Democratic groups. Brock, now best known as the ex-conservative founder of the liberal group Media Matters, last month quietly assumed the chairmanship of what's expected to be the main vehicle for independent Democratic attacks on McCain, now called Progressive Media USA.
The move comes after the groups that had been expected to spearhead attacks on McCain — the Fund for America and Progressive Media USA's previous incarnation, the Campaign to Defend America — failed to raise the money needed to dent McCain's armor.
"We're a little behind where we need to be," he said.
But after a dinner Tuesday night at the Manhattan apartment of liberal megadonor George Soros, at which Brock and consultant Paul Begala laid out the group's plans, Brock said his group now has commitments worth $7.5 million — almost twice what the Fund for America is expected to report raising in the first quarter of this year. He said the group would begin running ads before it meets its $40 million goal.
