Formed in late 2003 by Harold Ickes, Joint Victory Campaign 2004 (JVC) was the chief fundraising entity for the so-called Shadow Party — a network of nonprofit activist groups organized by George Soros and others to promote Democratic Party agendas and candidates during the 2004 election cycle. JVC was a stealth Political Action Committee (PAC) that collected contributions and then disbursed them, in turn, mostly to two other Shadow Party groups, America Coming Together (ACT) and The Media Fund. In its fundraising efforts, JVC made no attempt to appeal to moderate, centrist, or middle-of-the-road donors. Rather, it targeted hard-left donors who typically viewed George W. Bush as a dangerous, rightwing extremist. “Like millions of Americans,” said the JVC website prior to the 2004 elections, “we are terribly concerned about the extremist agenda of the Bush Republicans. If we don’t act now, the right-wing will use presidential incumbency and a significant financial advantage … to solidify control of federal and state government for decades to come. That is why we have come together to offer a way to successfully fight back.”

In 2004 alone, JVC channeled $38.4 million to The Media Fund and $19.4 million to American Coming Together.^[1]  All told, it raised and spent approximately $70 million that year.

Since it was little more than a money conduit, JVC attracted less press attention than the organizations it funded. It did surface briefly, however, in a February 5, 2004 Washington Post editorial questioning the shadowy nature of JVC’s financial transactons. The editorial noted that a mysterious “527 committee” calling itself the Sustainable World Corporation had suddenly sprung into existence in Houston, Texas on December 10, 2003, and then, seven days thereafter, had donated $3.1 million to JVC, which in turn divided that money between ACT and The Media Fund. Said the Post editorial: “Sustainable World Corp. lists only a post office box in Houston as its address. Directory assistance has no number for it. Searches of ordinary business databases come up empty. We tracked down Lewis Linn, the Houston accountant who is listed as its registered agent, and asked him about Sustainable World; he said he was bound by professional constraints to keep information about it confidential. Asked if he would check to see whether those behind Sustainable World would let him reveal their identity, Mr. Linn called back to say, ‘I’ve talked to my clients, and they wish to remain private.’” According to Harold Ickes, Houston investor Linda Pritzker of the Chicago Hyatt hotel family was the mystery [3].pdf”>benefactor behind the Sustainable World Corporation.

Janice Ann Enright, a longtime aide to Ickes, served as [3].pdf”>treasurer of JVC in 2004. Ickes and Enright had advised Hillary Clinton during her successful New York Senate campaign in 1999 and 2000 — a victory widely attributed to Ickes’ ruthless style of backroom politics.

Among the chief individual donors to JVC were Dan Lewis, Jonathan D. Lewis, S. Daniel Abraham, Peter B. Lewis, Richard Rosenthal, Herb Sandler, Marion Sandler, George Soros, Stewart A. Resnick, Lewis B. Cullman, Frank Brunckhorst, Louise Gund, Susie Buell, Stephen Bing, Agnes Varis, Anne Getty Earhart, Marcy Carsey, Nancy Burnett, Linda Pritzker, and Susan P. Orr.

JVC ceased operations after the 2004 elections.

NOTE:

^[1] David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 199.