A Conservative Answer to MoveOn

After Latta won, the DCCC chairman, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), issued a memo warning fellow Democrats about the new independent group gunning for them. Van Hollen's campaign committee has $31 million, compared with $2.3 million for the Republicans' committee, but he is deeply concerned that independent groups on the right are now engaged in congressional races while liberal groups are focused on the presidential race.

When it comes to political money, "there's a whole other universe out there," Van Hollen said he told Democrats. "Don't get lulled into a false sense of security."

Democrats are particularly concerned about the impact these groups can have against vulnerable incumbents from rural districts, where TV advertising is less expensive. "Those are congressional districts where a little bit of money can go a long way," Van Hollen said.

As an appetizer, Freedom's Watch took out full-page ads last fall in the local newspapers of seven freshman House Democrats from rural districts, targeting their antiwar votes and linking them to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Many in Freedom Watch's donor base -- including Adelson, the chairman and chief executive of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., and Sembler, the strip-mall magnate from St. Petersburg, Fla. -- have always been strong supporters of Israel. The group's initial ad blitz in defense of Bush's troop buildup in Iraq came naturally out of those interests.

To start, Freedom's Watch is raking in huge donations from a few donors, a model that the NRCC and other federally sanctioned campaign groups cannot follow, because donation sizes are limited by law. And like MoveOn, Freedom's Watch intends to augment that approach with a grass-roots fundraising model that energizes a base of supporters as it brings in money.

"If you're going to be a permanent organization that has real impact on public policy, you have to have significant financial supporters and you have to broaden your base," Fleischer said. "We are going to try to do both."