Subject: RE: freedom's watch from this weekend's post
From: "Begala, Paul" <[email-masked]>
To: "Tara McGuinness" <[email-masked]>, "Jim Gerstein" <[email-masked]>, "John Podesta" <[email-masked]>, "Stan Greenberg" <[email-masked]>, "Susan McCue" <[email-masked]>, "Tom Matzzie" <[email-masked]>, "Zach Schwartz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:56:26 -0500

Wow.  At least they're blowing a sizeable percentage of it on fancy
offices and overhead.  No one can accuse you of that, Matzzie!
 
Seriously, we should get this reproduced for potential donors.

________________________________

From: Tara McGuinness [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 2:37 PM
To: Begala, Paul; Jim Gerstein; John Podesta; Stan Greenberg; Susan
McCue; Tom Matzzie; Zach Schwartz
Subject: freedom's watch from this weekend's post

"The current Freedom's Watch staff of about 20 will be more than doubled
in the coming months. In December, the group lured Ed Patru, the message
chief for House Republicans, away from Capitol Hill
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Capitol+Hill?tid=inform
line>  

to run its aggressive communications arm.

The group's offices, above the posh Caucus Room restaurant downtown, 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.

And Freedom's Watch will have money -- a lot of money. 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."

A Conservative Answer to MoveOn
Political Advocacy Group Formed by Former Bush Aides Plans a Broad
Agenda

By Paul Kane and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers 
Sunday, January 20, 2008; A05

When a group of former White House
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+White+House?tid=inf
ormline>  aides formed a political advocacy group called Freedom's Watch
last summer, its initial wave of ads featured battered Iraq
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Iraq?tid=informline>
war veterans pleading for support for President Bush
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/George+W.+Bush?tid=info
rmline> 's "surge" of troops.

Last month, the theme changed dramatically as the same group splashed
dark, grainy images of illegal immigrants across television screens in
northern Ohio
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Ohio?tid=informline> ,
attacking a Democratic candidate's position on the divisive domestic
issue.

Freedom's Watch has loudly announced that there will be no limits to
what it might do. From its $15 million summer ad campaign defending the
Iraq strategy to its six-figure effort in the House special election in
Ohio, the group has put Democrats on notice that its agenda will go far
beyond the conservative principles of its largest financial backers.

"We're a permanent political operation here in town. We're not going to
be Johnny One Note," said Joe Eule, executive director of the expanding
group, a nonprofit organization that many are describing as the
MoveOn.org
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/MoveOn.org?tid=informli
ne>  of the right.

The current Freedom's Watch staff of about 20 will be more than doubled
in the coming months. In December, the group lured Ed Patru, the message
chief for House Republicans, away from Capitol Hill
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Capitol+Hill?tid=inform
line>  to run its aggressive communications arm.

The group's offices, above the posh Caucus Room restaurant downtown, 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.

And Freedom's Watch will have money -- a lot of money. 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.

"I'm happy to have any help I can get on the battlefield," said Rep. Tom
Cole <http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/c001053/>
(R-Okla.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/National+Republican+Con
gressional+Committee?tid=informline> , which has badly trailed its
counterpart, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Democratic+Congressiona
l+Campaign+Committee?tid=informline> , in fundraising.

Independent groups have been a staple of American politics since
election laws five years ago prohibited national parties from raising
unlimited amounts of money from wealthy individuals, unions and
corporations. In the last presidential campaign, the liberal groups
America Votes and Media Fund spent about $100 million apiece on a
get-out-the-vote effort and a TV attack campaign, respectively.

On the right, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth spent $22 million attacking
the military credentials of the Democratic presidential nominee, Sen.
John F. Kerry
<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/k000148/>  (Mass.).
In 2005 and 2006, the conservative Progress for America spent tens of
millions of dollars supporting the Supreme Court nominations of Chief
Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/John+Roberts+%28Chief+J
ustice%29?tid=informline>  and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Samuel+Alito?tid=inform
line> 

Federal laws prevent independent groups from directly advocating or
opposing specific candidates, so most of these groups tend to disappear
as quickly as they arrive, folding when the election or the debate they
are trying to influence concludes. MoveOn.org is an important exception.
Founded a decade ago to urge Congress to censure President Bill Clinton
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Bill+Clinton?tid=inform
line>  for his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Monica+Lewinsky?tid=inf
ormline>  and "move on," the group grew into a leading liberal voice.

Enter Freedom's Watch.

"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 mobilized the left," said
Ari Fleischer, a former Bush press secretary and a Freedom's Watch
founder. The other organizers are Bradley A. Blakeman, another former
Bush White House official, and Mel Sembler, a Florida
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Florida?tid=informline>
strip-mall magnate who served as Bush's ambassador to Italy
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Italy?tid=informline> .

Wes Boyd, who co-founded MoveOn.org with his wife in their home in
Berkeley
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Berkeley?tid=informline
> , Calif.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/California?tid=informli
ne> , said the two groups are fundamentally different because his
liberal organization was set up outside the influence of Democratic
Party
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Democratic+Party?t
id=informline>  operatives and is funded primarily by small-dollar
donors around the country.

Freedom's Watch, on the other hand, is "doing attack ads by Beltway
operatives, financed by billionaires, at the request of the White
House," Boyd said by e-mail. "MoveOn helps millions of real people get
engaged and be heard and is solely funded by these same people."

For much of the debate over campaign finance legislation earlier this
decade, Republicans argued that Congress should rein in independent
political groups, known as 527 organizations because of the part of the
tax code that governs them. Because those groups leaned primarily
Democratic, the Democrats resisted.

"Now they're reaping what they sowed," Cole said.

Many 527s have faced tight scrutiny from the Federal Election Commission
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Federal+Election+Commis
sion?tid=informline> , so some operatives -- including the Freedom's
Watch founders -- have decided to open political groups under a
different section of the tax code that has received little attention
from regulators, according to legal experts.

The organization was conceived at a Florida meeting of the Republican
Jewish Coalition last spring with the initial aim of defending Bush's
policies in Iraq and Iran
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Iran?tid=informline> .
But like its inspiration and antagonist, it has moved on.

The aggressively negative anti-illegal-immigration ads that ran during
the Ohio special election race strayed far from Middle East
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Middle+East?tid=informl
ine>  policy, but the ad campaign -- like the group itself -- was
bankrolled largely by Sheldon G. Adelson, a Las Vegas
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Las+Vegas?tid=informlin
e>  casino executive who last year pledged an unprecedented $200 million
to Jewish and Israeli causes.

Adelson personally wrote an $80,000 check to Freedom's Watch on Dec. 7,
according to Federal Election Commission documents, just four days
before the election that gave Republican Robert Latta the House seat
representing the district around Bowling Green
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Bowling+Green?tid=infor
mline> . Behind a blood-red foreground, the group's ad showed Latinos
hurrying under fences and being frisked by police as a narrator accused
Democratic candidate Robin Weirauch and "liberals in Congress" of
supporting free health care for illegal immigrants.

Fleischer said the turn toward the immigration issue should not have
been a surprise.

"To us it wasn't a broadening" of the mission, he said. "We said
prosperity through free enterprise and domestic issues were going to be
on the agenda. But something had to come first, and what came first was
the 'surge' and the president's policies in Iraq."

Fleischer cautioned that the scope of the group's involvement in the
2008 elections has not been decided. But the roughly $100,000 ad
campaign in Ohio is a good indication.

After Latta won, the DCCC chairman, Rep. Chris Van Hollen
<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/v000128/>  (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
<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/p000197/>
(D-Calif.).

Many in Freedom Watch's donor base -- including Adelson, the chairman
and chief executive of the Las Vegas Sands Corp.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Las+Vegas+Sands+Corp.?t
id=informline> , and Sembler, the strip-mall magnate from St. Petersburg
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/St.+Petersburg?tid=info
rmline> , Fla. -- have always been strong supporters of Israel
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Israel?tid=informline>
. 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."