Right-wing Juggernaut Freedom's Watch Not Living up to Its Scary Rep

The hiring of Carl Forti, the former political director for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's failed presidential run and hardball flinging spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), appeared to signal that Freedom's Watch is getting ready to gear up for Election 2008. However, will recent defections from the group, and reported questions about the actual existence of the $250 million war chest that Freedom's Watch's leaders have boasted about, slow its operation down?

On top of these questions, two well-connected conservative insiders, commenting on condition of anonymity, raised their own questions about whether Freedom's Watch's rhetoric might be outpacing its actual accomplishments.

In late March, Freedom's Watch (website), the group founded by former White House staffers and funded by a host of very wealthy longtime Republican donors, announced that Forti, one of the GOP's premier hatchet men, will serve as its Executive Vice President and head up "the group's issue advocacy campaign in the fall."

Earlier in the month, Bradley Blakeman, a co-founder of Freedom's Watch and a former deputy assistant to Bush, stepped down as president of the organization. Blakeman's departure came soon after he sent out an email fundraising appeal which in part claimed that Freedom's Watch was "the only group capable of going toe-to-toe with George Soros and this Left-Wing juggernaut."

Blakeman boasted of Freedom's Watch's victory over MoveOn.org, allegedly beating them "at their own game (taking down The New York Times in the process!). In fact, we've been so successful that former Bill Clinton adviser James Carville proclaimed Freedom's Watch a grave danger to the Left's radical agenda. We'll take that as a compliment."

Will the group's fundraising efforts suck up money that would otherwise have gone to other conservative grassroots groups? It seems odd that Freedom's Watch would try to raise small amounts of money via e-mail -- after all, the group doesn't have anywhere near the mail list of an organization like MoveOn.org -- when it supposedly already has amassed $250 million in its coffers. Perhaps Freedom's Watch co-founder and big money man, Sheldon Adelson, has not yet cut the check.

Blakeman's departure followed on the heels of the earlier resignations of Matt S. David, the group's communications director and a former McCain campaign hand who left to join the administration of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Robert Terra, another former McCain aide who had signed up to work with Freedom's Watch.

"What those departures mean for a group expected to serve as the main vehicle for conservative spending in the coming election, is not immediately clear," the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza observed in early March.

Banking on Forti

Between 2004 and 2006, Carl Forti was communications director at the National Republican Congressional Committee where, the New York Times reported, "he oversaw the committee's independent expenditures."

"Carl is a seasoned political operative with a broad and deep understanding of the policy issues that shape political dynamics both nationally and locally," the Freedom's Watch Board of Directors said in a statement. "Carl will play an integral role in this organization as we move to impact critical public policy issues that will be debated this year."

Forti called the position "an important job in an important cycle." The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza reported that when he was "asked about the goals for the organization, Forti said only his aim was 'to educate people about issues important to them and their neighbors.'"

"Under Forti's direction, the NRCC's ad campaigns were called 'the worst offenders in stretching the truth', 'the very definition of political mudslinging,' and 'misleading at best, demonstrably false at worst,'" Bruce Wilson, the co-founder of Talk to Action, a blog tracking the Religious Right, told Media Transparency in an e-mail.