"...Although Scaife has dedicated vast sums of money to influencing the way the public thinks, he prefers to operate behind the scenes, granting few interviews. When former Wall Street Journal reporter Karen Rothmyer attempted to interview him in 1981, he responded by calling her a “fucking Communist cunt” and telling her to “get out of here.”
Between 1985 and 2001, the Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundation donated $15,860,000 to the Heritage Foundation; $7,333,000 to the Institute for Policy Analysis; $6,995,500 to the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace; $6,693,000 to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); $4,411,000 to the American Enterprise Institute; $2,575,000 to the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research; $1,855,000 to the George C. Marshall Institute; $1,808,000 to the Hudson Institute; and $1,697,000 to the Cato Institute.
For the years 1985-2001, the Scaife Family Foundation donated $702,640 to the Heritage Foundation; $590,000 to the American Enterprise Institute; $275,000 to the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University; $200,000 to the CSIS; and $175,000 to the New Citizenship Project, Inc., alone.
....
By 1999, the Washington Post reported that the Scaife’s foundations had given $340 million to conservative causes and institutions.<2> (
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/scaife050299.htm) By 2002, they held more than $320 million in assets, and in that year alone they gave away more than $22 million.<3> (
http://www.scaife.com/sarah02.pdf)<4> (
http://www.scaife.com/allegh02.pdf)<5> (
http://www.scaife.com/cartha02.pdf) Grant recipients included:
* American Civil Rights Union
* American Enterprise Institute
* American Legislative Exchange Council
* Americans for Tax Reform
* Atlas Economic Research Foundation
* Capital Research Center
* Cato Institute
* Center for Media and Public Affairs
* Center for the Study of Popular Culture
* Citizens for a Sound Economy
* Collegiate Network
* Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
* Competitive Enterprise Institute
* Evergreen Freedom Foundation
* Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy
* Free Congress Research and Education Foundation
* George C. Marshall Institute
* Heritage Foundation
* Hudson Institute
* Independent Women's Forum
* Intercollegiate Studies Institute
* Judicial Watch
* Landmark Legal Foundation
* Media Research Center
* Philanthropy Roundtable
* Reason Foundation
* University of Chicago
SourceWatchWell he doesn't sound very liberal, so that might explain the strangely massaged poll numbers that really don't indicate anything more than a lot of confusion.