Liberal billionaire George Soros opened up in an interview with The New York Times about his thoughts on former President Obama, noting that he was “actually my greatest disappointment.”
Soros’s aide quickly urged him to clarify that his disappointment was on a “professional level,” however, and was not a statement about his presidency.
Rather, he had hoped Obama, whom he was an early supporter of, would seek his advice on economic and financial issues.
But he didn’t.
“He closed the door on me,” Soros told the Times about Obama after he was elected. “He made one phone call thanking me for my support, which was meant to last for five minutes, and I engaged him, and he had to spend another three minutes with me, so I dragged it out to eight minutes.”
Soros added: “He was someone who was known from the time when he was competing for the editorship of The Harvard Law Review to take his supporters for granted and to woo his opponents.”
Later in the interview the billionaire commented on his own political ideology, and said he doesn’t “particularly want to be a Democrat” but that the GOP’s “extremism” (quoting the Times) led him to becoming a Democratic donor.
When I asked Soros to describe himself ideologically, he laughed. “My ideology is nonideological,” he said. “I’m in the club of nonclubs.” When I suggested that “center-left” might characterize his views, he demurred; he said it wasn’t clear where he stood now because the left had moved further left, a development that did not please him. “I’m opposed to the extreme left,” he said. “It should stop trying to keep up with the extremists on the right.” [...]
It was the extremism of the Republican Party that had prompted him to become a major Democratic donor, he said; he wanted the Republican Party to reform itself into a more moderate party. He said he was not especially partisan himself: “I don’t particularly want to be a Democrat.” (NYT)
Thus far, Soros has contributed at least $15 million to Democratic candidates and issues ahead of the midterm elections.