What do Fred Eychaner and ACORN have in common? Obama

posted at 3:03 pm on December 7, 2009 by Anita MonCrief
[ ACORN Watch ]   

Attorney General Eric Holder and his Justice Department have decided that the “Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress banned the government from providing money to the group.”

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Most Americans are outraged at the prospect, but considering the behavior of ACORN’s other funders, one should not be surprised. ACORN only receives a small amount of its annual operating budget from the government. The remaining amount consists of donations. The charitable organizations and persons that fund ACORN are a who’s who’s of progressive funders including Herb and Marion Sandler.

Other donors are among the top progressive funders in the nation and Fred Eychaner’s largesse is legendary.

“Low-profile? Not Chicago media mogul Fred Eychaner. He has given away millions of dollars to the Democratic Party and to the Joffrey Ballet. But just try to snap his picture. In 1997, when his alma mater, Northwestern University, honored him along with 75 other graduates, Eychaner was the only one of the group who didn’t contribute a photograph. “We put out an all-points bulletin for a picture,” says Associate Dean Richard Roth. “There wasn’t one. We assume he exists.”

He does–but he’s visible only to a select few. That generally doesn’t include the press or other business tycoons. It does include folks like Al Gore, for whom Eychaner threw a fundraiser inside his Lincoln Park home–an 80-foot-long concrete creation by Japanese architect Tadao Ando. “I’ve covered him for 20 years, and he’s still an enigma,” says Chicago Sun-Times media reporter Robert Feder. “For all his wealth, he never shows up in the gossip columns and rarely shows up in the business pages.”

He did in June, when his company, Newsweb Corp., sold its Chicago television station–WPWR-Channel 50–to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. for $425 million in cash. That put Eychaner’s net worth at an estimated $500 million, given his virtually debt-free TV station in Denver, several radio stations in the Chicago area and well-timed investments in media companies like McClatchy and Stauffer Communications.”

According to reports, Eychaner “ranks fifth nationally as a lifetime donor to the Democratic National Committee and related committees between 1978 and January 2004.”

Like most progressive funders, Eychaner has a history with ACORN and its affiliated organizations. According to ACORN internal records, Eychaner gave $100,000 to ACORN affiliate Project Vote and contributed to America Votes. In order to ensure a permanent majority a number of nonprofits and 527 groups coalesced around a political strategy.

“This idea of an eternal, localized political structure is a hot one among Democrats and liberals. Similar organizations exist in several other states, and big donors are looking kindly on them. The umbrella group America Votes was organized in ’04, to coordinate voter mobilization against President Bush, and continues to operate.

America Votes 2006 (stay with us here; this is how a lot of American politics is financed) recently received $500,000 from both Rockefeller heir Alida Messinger and Chicago publisher Fred Eychaner, and a combined $250,000 from brother-and-sister billionaires Jon and Pat Stryker, heirs to the Stryker medical technology company.”

Enter the Obamas from stage left. Besides a long term relationship with ACORN, Obama also seems to know the same funder. In 2004 Eychaner gave $12,000 to Obama’s Senatorial campaign and in 2008 Michelle Obama hosted a fundraiser at Eychaner’s house:

“Happy anniversary!” a supporter shouted to Michelle Obama at a fund-raiser at Newsweb President Fred Eychaner’s Lakeview home Monday night.’Thank you! We had a good date too,’ Obama said with a smile as the crowd began to cheer. ‘We did, yeah… Enough said…’

‘He’s raised a whole lot of money thanks to you,’ she told 200 people at Eychaner’s home — a steel and glass marvel designed by Tadao Ando. ‘He has broken records with his fund-raising and that’s important because he has the resources that he needs to operate the kind of ground game that will be critical.’

Interestingly enough Eychaner attended the 2009 LGBT White House Event and was a co-chair of the Chicago 2016 Committee.  Also, despite the rampant media bias perpetrated by left- leaning newspapers, Eychaner was in talks to purchase the Chicago Sun Times. Luckily (insert irony here) the paper was acquired by another Obama donor instead. Mesirow Financial was also in talks to buy the paper around the same time it was providing internal audits for ACORN.

The Obama administration appears content to weather the storm regarding ACORN and private donors will continue to fund their activities. Unless ACORN and its corrupt funders are exposed, they will continue to manipulate electoral politics for years to come.

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