Pissing their money away

Rightwing front group Freedom’s Watch (which I can’t read without seeing ‘Freedom Swatch’) is kinda struggling:

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.

[...]

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.

Thank goodness conservatives still have the Victory Caucus to fall back on, as triumphantly reported back on February 16, 2007 .

Today The Victory Caucus is seeing tremendous traffic for a site that is five days old, and an impressive commitment of resources from virtual volunteers around the country. Before long the Caucus will be identifying the congressional districts which have twice voted for George W. Bush but which are represented by Democrats. It already has a list of the 17 white flag Republicans up. I expect a great deal of effort to go into the identification of candidates for these 68 districts, candidates committed to supporting victory in the war.

Feel the Victory Caucus Surge:

I more than doubled their numbers in March… on an inactive blog.