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2007-09-30 Home Front: Politix
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New conservative group turning focus from Iraq to Iran
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Freedom's Watch, a conservative group led by two former senior White House officials, made an audacious debut in late August when it began a $15 million advertising campaign designed to maintain congressional support for President Bush's troop increase in Iraq.
Founded this summer by a dozen wealthy conservatives, the nonprofit group is set apart from most advocacy groups by the immense wealth of its core benefactors, its intention to far outspend its rivals and its ambition to pursue a wide-ranging agenda. Its next target: Iran policy.
In October, Freedom's Watch will sponsor a private forum of 20 experts on radical Islam that is expected to make the case that Iran poses a direct threat to the security of the United States, according to several benefactors of the group.
Although the group declined to identify the experts, several were invited from the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington research group with close ties to the White House. Some institute scholars have advocated a more confrontational policy to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, including keeping military action as an option.
Last week, a Freedom's Watch newspaper advertisement called President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran "a terrorist." The group is considering a national advertising campaign focused on Iran, a senior benefactor said, although Matt David, a spokesman for the group, declined to comment on those plans.
"If Hitler's warnings were heeded when he wrote 'Mein Kampf,' he could have been stopped," said Bradley Blakeman, 49, the president of Freedom's Watch and a former deputy assistant to Bush. "Ahmadinejad is giving all the same kind of warning signs to us, and the region he wants the destruction of the United States and the destruction of Israel."
With a forceful message and a roster of wealthy benefactors, Freedom's Watch has quickly emerged from the crowded field of nonprofit advocacy groups as a conservative answer to the nine-year-old liberal group MoveOn.org, which also started as an attempt by wealthy political donors to shape debate in Washington.
The idea for Freedom's Watch was hatched in March. Next week, the group will move into a 10,000-square-foot office in the Chinatown section of Washington, with plans to employ as many as 50 people by early next year.
One benefactor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the group was hoping to raise as much as $200 million by November 2008. Raising big money "will be easy," the benefactor said, adding that several of the founders each wrote a check for $1 million. Blakeman would not confirm or deny whether any donor gave $1 million, or more, to the organization.
Since the group is organized as a tax-exempt organization, it does not have to reveal its donors and it cannot engage in certain types of partisan activities that directly support political candidates. It denies coordinating its activities with the White House. However, many of its donors and organizers, including Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary, are well connected to the administration.
"Ideologically, we are inspired by much of Ronald Reagan's thinking peace through strength, protect and defend America, and prosperity through free enterprise," Fleischer said.
Among the group's founders are Sheldon Adelson, the chairman and chief executive of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., who ranks sixth on the Forbes Magazine list of the world's billionaires; Mel Sembler, a shopping center magnate based in St. Petersburg, Fla., who served as the ambassador to Italy and Australia; John Templeton Jr., the conservative philanthropist from Bryn Mawr, Pa.; and Anthony Gioia, a former ambassador to Malta who heads an investment group based in Buffalo, N.Y.
For years, the group's founders lamented MoveOn's growing influence, derived in large part from its grass-roots efforts, especially on the debate about the Iraq war.
Over the summer, Fleischer and the other founders recruited a president, choosing Blakeman, who served as a deputy assistant to the president in charge of scheduling and appointments. In 2000, Blakeman led the Bush-Cheney campaign's public relations effort during the 36 days of the deadlocked election. He left the White House in January 2004.
Blakeman and Fleischer said they intended to turn Freedom's Watch into a permanent fixture among advocacy groups, waging a "never-ending campaign" on an array of foreign policy and domestic issues. They also hope to build an active, grass-roots support network.
But Eli Pariser, the executive director of MoveOn.org, which was founded in 1998 by two Silicon Valley venture capitalists, said he doubted the group's ability to meet that goal.
"This is the fourth or the fifth group that intends to be the right-wing MoveOn," Pariser said, naming other fledgling groups like TheVanguard.org and Grassfire.org. "So far, it's not clear that this group is anything other than a big neoconservative slush fund. They are a White House front group with a few consultants who are trying to make a very unpopular position on the war appear more palpable." 
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Posted by Sherry 2007-09-30 18:30||
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Posted by trailing wife 2007-09-30 19:30||
2007-09-30 19:30||
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Posted by Brett 2007-09-30 21:37||
2007-09-30 21:37||
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