Some outside groups expected to spend the most are already rolling. | REUTERS Outside groups pivot to Obama

Public attention may still be trained on the Republican presidential primary, but prominent conservative groups are transitioning toward Democrats, already spending big money on ads attacking President Barack Obama.

Some of the outside groups expected to spend the most money this year are already rolling, including the Karl Rove-linked American Crossroads, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and FreedomWorks. Other smaller groups are preparing, too.


The pivot from presidential primary to general election spending “seems to be happening right now,” said Ken Goldstein, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising. “Outside groups are going to have a much bigger piece of the pie in terms of ad spending.”

Last week, for example, Crossroads GPS, the nonprofit wing of the super PAC American Crossroads, launched a $650,000 ad buy blasting Obama over gasoline, the ad juxtaposing gas prices of today with those from when Obama took office in 2009.

The ads are running nationally, with a particular focus on states that Obama has this week personally visited. The campaign is part of what’s expected to be tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in overall spending this cycle from the Crossroads groups, which have set for themselves a $240 million fundraising goal.

Asked if American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS are about to unload the full strength of their financial firepower against Obama, spokesman Jonathan Collegio replied, “It’s already happening.

“Whenever the president gives a policy speech now, you can expect the conservative/Republican groups to push back,” Collegio said.

American Crossroads reported $23.5 million cash on hand through February, while Crossroads GPS, a nonprofit organization, is not legally required to disclosure its donors.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile, launched a $3 million ad campaign targeting 20 Democratic congressional members or candidates, slamming many of them for their support of “Obamacare” last month.

It’s part of what the Chamber predicts will be $50 million or more worth of election cycle spending — “the largest effort in our history,” Chamber political director Rob Engstrom said.

FreedomWorks, a group that helped boost Republican congressional candidates in 2010, is again at the national political forefront, too.

“We are definitely going to be spending a lot more money soon — a significant amount — to highlight the president’s record and to drive him from office,” said Ryan Hecker, chief operating officer of FreedomWorks super PAC FreedomWorks for America, which this election cycle has already made $154,000 worth of overtly anti-Obama independent expenditures, most of it recently.

Hecker says FreedomWorks for America’s upcoming advertisement volley will be worth “six-figures definitely, if not seven figures” and focus on either key presidential battleground states or states where competitive Senate races are also being run, including Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and possibly, Wisconsin.

How much overall Obama-centric outside spending could occur between now and the end of April alone?

“We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars,” said John Carroll, a mass communication professor at Boston University who tracks political advertising expenditures. “We’re pretty much looking straight at a tsunami of advertising that will continue to escalate into an arms race as the campaign goes on. The airwaves are going to become increasingly congested, and groups believe that by spending now, they have a better chance of being notices by the public and by the press.”

The Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama political action committee, meanwhile, is going up with anti-Obama ads in Wisconsin to coincide with the state’s upcoming gubernatorial recall vote.

“We’ve got to get ahead of the fight, and that’s why we’re getting in now. Crunch time is not out there in the future. It’s already beginning,” said Ryan Gill, vice president of the Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama, who also noted that the organization is considering forming or converting to a super PAC, which would allow it to raise unlimited amounts of money to advocate against Obama.

Another specific, but critical measure of the spending ramp-up is this: During all of 2011, political groups made about $426,600 worth of the strongest, most obvious of all kinds of anti-Obama communications — known as independent expenditures — via television, telephone, mail, radio or the Internet, federal campaign finance records show.

Comparatively, during then the first 11 weeks of this year, outside groups are one moderate ad buy away from matching that figure, having made about $373,700 worth of such independent expenditures, the content of which by definition directly advocates for Obama’s defeat.

And close to half this amount has hit during the past three weeks, with anti-abortion rights political action committee Life and Liberty PAC spending $100,000 on phone banking and mail blasts and the Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama spending more than $60,000 on various ads.

Sponsors of separate, issues-based advertisements that name politicians such as Obama aren’t required by law to formally disclose how much they cost unless they’re placed 30 days before a primary election or 60 days before November’s general election.

Crossroads GPS has this year already racked up more than $266,500 of this particular kind of outside messaging, which has primarily fueled media production costs for advertisements critical of Obama, federal electioneering communication filings indicate.

Meanwhile, Cain Connections, a super PAC backed by former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, late last week solicited supporters by email for $100,000 to produce an anti-Obama film.

Super PACs supporting specific Republican presidential candidates, such as pro-Mitt Romney Restore Our Future, could also soon direct its impressive resources at Obama after spending months and millions of dollars skewering fellow Republicans Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. The chief financier of pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC Winning Our Future, billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, is also showing signs of turning his attention away from Gingrich and toward the general election.

Said Carroll: “This, now, is the shake-down cruise for all of the super PACs and other groups.”

Independent expenditure and electioneering communication numbers don’t account for what’s likely millions of dollars worth of other negative, issue-based advertisements in recent weeks concerning health care reform, energy policy and other hot-button issues. They name or depict Obama, but don’t specifically advocate for his electoral defeat and aren’t reported to the Federal Election Commission, such as many of those being run by Crossroads GPS.

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt declined comment on the impending spending spree.

But Obama’s campaign itself will certainly enjoy more than ample resources with which to battle back.

His 2008 campaign effort spent about $750 million — a U.S. record for any single campaign — and his re-election fight will almost assuredly cost as much, if not more.

Through February, the Obama campaign and affiliated Democratic National Committee operations enjoyed more than $90 million in the bank.

Outside organizations supportive of Obama are also entering the presidential campaign fray, albeit to a lesser extent — at least at this juncture.

And they’re using the threat of a conservative outside spending onslaught as a fundraising tool of their own.

On Sunday, for example, Democratic Senatorial Congressional Committee Online Communications Director Jason Rosenbaum sent an email to potential donors asking for help.

“In April, we can expect the GOP SuperPAC machine to begin pouring unprecedented amounts of money into presidential and Senate battleground states. They will pollute the airwaves and try to drown our collective voice,” Rosenbaum’s email reads. “If we don’t raise $800,000 in the next 7 days … President Obama, [Rep.] Tammy Baldwin, and [Sen.] Sherrod Brown will be buried under millions of dollars in negative ads.”

Leaders of pro-Democrat political organizations echo the sentiment.

“There’s no doubt conservatives have been gearing up for this moment that we’re at now,” said Bill Burton, Obama’s former deputy press secretary and senior adviser at pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action and sister nonprofit Priorities USA.

As far as his groups’ spending is concerned, Burton says they will “make spending decisions based on where we can be most efficient with our ads. And yes — it would be a dereliction of duty to not be aggressive and do something” when political opponents hit the president with negative ads.

To date this election cycle, Priorities USA Action’s hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of independent expenditures — about $300,000 in February alone — have not directly supported Obama. They’ve almost exclusively attacked Mitt Romney.

The super PAC last week reported $2.84 million cash on hand at the end of February.

For NARAL Pro-Choice America, it last month made a quarter-million dollars worth of independent expenditures promoting Obama through television and print ads and defending his record on health care and contraception coverage, federal records show.

That’s just the beginning of NARAL Pro-Choice America’s advertising support for Obama, political director Elizabeth Shipp said.

The nonprofit organization expects to spend more money this election cycle than it did during either the 2010 midterms or 2008 presidential cycle, she said.

“When his opponents come out and say things that aren’t true,” Shipp said, “we feel it’s our prerogative and responsibility to respond.”