Republicans are broke: "No 527s in existence"

By GottaLaff

Check this out:

The truth is that, less than five months before Election Day, there are no serious anti-Obama 527s in existence nor are there any immediate plans to create such a group.

Conversations with more than a dozen Republican strategists find near unanimity in the belief that, at some point, there will be a real third-party effort aimed at Obama.

But not one knows who will run it, who will pay for it, what shape it will eventually take or when such a group may form.

I'm copying and pasting before the McClellan hearings start again:

Also staying out of the third-party effort this time is the powerful Republican public affairs firm, the DCI Group.

DCI ran the independent Progress for America (PFA) campaign that raised $45 million to tout George W. Bush and tar John Kerry in 2004. [...]

Further, Freedom’s Watch, the one third-party group that many conservatives expected to step into the void left by PFA, has decided to exclusively focus on congressional battles. [...] Multiple Republican sources say that Karl Rove has been in contact with donors such as Adelson and Pickens about helping to create an independent effort but that to date nothing has come of it.

But why is this happening?

But, in explaining the absence of any anti-Obama groups this time around, every individual interviewed for this story cited the same central reason: a fear that their party’s nominee will publicly denounce them and hold a grudge. [...]

Aside from fears about antagonizing McCain, there is palpable disappointment over the failure of Hillary Clinton to claim the Democratic nomination. Many in the GOP were gearing up for, and were energized by, the prospect of a run against Clinton.

As for Democrats:

The diminished role of third-party groups this campaign isn’t confined to the right, though. Democratic-leaning groups have done far less so far this year than in 2004, when outfits such as the George Soros-funded America Coming Together and The Media Fund spent hundreds of millions of dollars attacking Bush.

The reasoning is the same: fear of being rebuked by their own candidate.

But 527s will be ba-a-a-ack. Per the article, they're here to stay.