The biggest unknown in Congressional races this season is Freedom's Watch, the shadowy right-wing group that claims it is going to spend $250M on Congressional campaigns. Shadowy is actually an overstatement, since it is well-known that it is right-wing billionaires like casino magnate Sheldon Adelson who are putting up the money.
"We're a permanent political operation here in town. We're not going to be Johnny One Note," Joe Eule, the group's executive director, told the Washington Post.
According to the newspaper, Freedom's Watch staff of 20 "will be more than doubled in the coming months"; communications will be run by Ed Patru, "the message chief for House Republicans," who was recently lured "away from Capitol Hill"; and the group's headquarters "above the posh Caucus Room restaurant [in] downtown [Washington], are being outfitted with a modern studio so the staff can send ads to TV and radio stations across the country on a moment's notice."
This is one group that will not experience financial difficulties: According to the Post, "While initial reports suggested a budget of $200 million, people who have talked to the group in recent weeks say the figure is closer to $250 million, more than double the amount spent by the largest independent liberal groups in the 2004 election cycle."
"There is a sense among those contributing to Freedom's Watch that MoveOn powerfully filled a void in the left, that rallied support in the left, that raised money from the left, that mobilised the left," Ari Fleischer, a former Bush press secretary and a Freedom's Watch founder, told the Post.
"Freedom's Watch is raking in huge donations from a few donors, a model that other federally sanctioned campaign groups cannot follow, because donation sizes are limited by law," John Stauber, executive director of the Centre for Media and Democracy, told IPS.
"And like MoveOn, Freedom's Watch intends to augment that approach with a grass-roots fundraising model that energises a base of supporters as it brings in money," he said.
Moveon doesn't have a large staff in DC, it doesn't have large deep-pocketed donors, it doesn't even have an office. What it does have is a sustained base of 3 million members who take action on a regular basis and an intense culture of listening and promoting progressive power.
Top-down right-wing groups can't compete, because their Moveon's were created in the 1970s in the form of groups like the NRA and the Christian Coalition. And so This is interesting, though not surprising.
In not-for-attribution interviews, a few conservative think tank hands and activists expressed frustration that Freedom's Watch has yet to develop a comprehensive strategy, and they gripe that it has been slow to set up a MoveOn-style infrastructure. Freedom's Watch hasn't realized its full potential, they say, in part because Adelson overly involves himself in the group's decision-making and won't heed the good advice of...well, people like them.
"He is both meddlesome and attached to his own agenda," says a conservative think tanker. "And he is not listening to people who are giving him good political and strategic advice.... Everyone I know comes away very frustrated from their experience" with Freedom's Watch. "They are late to the game and they need to recognize that," he adds. "MoveOn has had a microphone to itself for a number of years. Freedom's Watch is not entirely ineffective, but they are not well organized or maximizing their impact." (Conservatives may be too obsessed with MoveOn to realize that it's a membership-based organization and not a precise model for a top-down outfit like Freedom's Watch.)
Other conservative activists raised similar points. "You have people like Ari Fleischer on the board of Freedom's Watch saying 'the cavalry is coming,' and a lot of groups who think they have important work to do on various issues who have, of course, come to [Adelson] with proposals," says a source familiar with Freedom's Watch. "Freedom's Watch doesn't have an executive director at the moment, and I don't see what capabilities it has set up."
Conservatives seem to be experiencing Soros envy, believing-rightly or not-that a well-heeled left has out-organized them. "The fact is this [liberal] network, it goes all the way from MoveOn to trial lawyers to the Center for American Progress: The left has all this set up, a very sophisticated structure," this source says.
The new left-wing infrastracture is fresh and interesting, and is composed mostly of a large group of activists supplemented by a few large donors. This makes what we do much more in touch with the 'silent majority' of Americans, most of whom hate the Iraq war and believe that the country is seriously off track. Oddly enough, idiosyncratic right-wing billionaires are not in step with popular sentiment.
As an anti-spam measure, there is a 24-hour waiting period after registering before new users can comment. blog advertising is good for you
blog advertising is good for you
