Freedom's Watch Falls Short on Expectations

One conspicuous element of the current changes in American politics is the role of online advocacy organizations like MoveOn.org, and to a similar extent blogs like Daily Kos.

Interest group politics has moved online in many respects, especially on the hot-button issue of the war in Iraq. But the movement's been most prominent for left-wing partisan mobilization, as today's New York Times article on Freedom's Watch indicates:

The conservative group Freedom’s Watch, headlined by two former senior White House officials, had been expected to be a deep-pocketed juggernaut in this year’s presidential election, heralded by supporters on the right as an aggressive counterweight to MoveOn.org, George Soros and the like.

But after a splashy debut last summer, in which it spent $15 million in a nationwide advertising blitz supporting President Bush’s troop escalation in Iraq, the group has been mostly quiet, beset by internal problems that have paralyzed it and raised questions about what kind of role, if any, it will actually play this fall.

The group was conspicuously absent this week as Gen. David H. Petraeus, the United States commander in Iraq, returned to Congress to testify. Moreover, the troubles at Freedom’s Watch come as some Democratic-aligned groups are seeking to take the offensive, with one group, Progressive Media USA, planning to raise $40 million to spend on advertisements and other efforts to undermine Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Independent groups not constrained by the limits placed on campaign contributions to candidates and parties have increasingly become major players in races for federal offices. Those known as 527s, named for the section in the tax code they fall under, raised more than $400 million in the 2004 election cycle alone, according to the Campaign Finance Institute. Such efforts could be especially beneficial for Mr. McCain, who has badly trailed his Democratic counterparts in fund-raising.

Backers of Freedom’s Watch once talked about spending some $200 million, a figure that officials now say was exaggerated. Lending to the aura of ambition, the organization moved into a state-of-the-art 10,000-square-foot office in Washington and hired a staff of about 20, with talk of bringing in scores more for a vigorous campaign to promote conservative issues.

Behind the scenes, however, Freedom’s Watch has been plagued by gridlock and infighting, leaving it struggling for direction, according to several Republican operatives familiar with the organization who were granted anonymity so they could be candid about the group’s problems.

Although the organization was founded by a coterie of prominent conservative donors last year, the roughly $30 million the group has spent so far has come almost entirely from the casino mogul Sheldon G. Adelson, the chairman and chief executive of the Sands Corporation, who was recently listed as the third-richest person in the country by Forbes magazine.

Mr. Adelson has insisted on parceling out his money project by project, as opposed to setting an overall budget, limiting the group’s ability to plan and be nimble, the Republican operatives said. Mr. Adelson, who has a reputation for being combative, has rejected almost all of the staff’s proposals that have been brought to him, leaving the organization moribund for long stretches, the operatives said.

“What has happened here is pretty much you had a single donor who essentially dictates the way things occur or do not occur,” said one of the Republican operatives.

A spokesman for Mr. Adelson said he was unavailable for comment. But Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary who sits on the group’s board, suggested that Mr. Adelson’s refusal to finance certain projects was tied to his dissatisfaction with the leadership.

“Sheldon has a proven track history of being fantastically generous,” Mr. Fleischer said. “What’s important is to always earn his confidence.”

Whatever the explanation, with prospects of the group’s going full bore in the presidential campaign seeming to dim, Republican strategists cited a lost opportunity. “Now we’re at a stage in the presidential campaign, if there was a group that could effectively advocate for the issues that are important to John McCain, it would be a good thing,” said Terry Nelson, who was Mr. McCain’s campaign manager until last summer and was political director for President Bush’s campaign in 2004. “But there’s nobody there that’s ready to do it. I think people hoped Freedom’s Watch would play that role.”

The difficulties at Freedom's Watch should trouble conservatives intent on balancing the extremities of the left.

It could be that the strength of such online advocacy groups is correllated to which party holds the White House.

Online interest group activity has surged in importance during the Bush years. Perhaps an Obama adminstration will kindle conservative grassroots Internet organzation during an era of hard-left partisan dominance in Washington.

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Extra: Note what Oliver Willis says about the hard-left advocacy organizations:

MoveOn was founded by normal Americans, built a huge grassroots membership, then became an institution on the left. Freedom’s Watch, like the right often tries, skipped the whole messy grassroots bottom-up segment and leapt right into being an institution of the right with its financing by the same money barons who fund so much of the right.

My guess is that Willis is not familiar with George Soros, who, of course, is a real down-home kind of a guy.

But Willis also includes Daily Kos in his category of "normal people." Perhaps wanting to gas Jews is a "normal" aspiration for those on the hard-left end of the spectrum.

See also, "Conservative Group Thinks it Has Answer to MoveOn.org."

Hat tip: Memeorandum