Republicans and their allies have been working for months with single-minded focus on plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on ads funded by a combination of existing special interest groups and newly formed political outfits.

But Democratic operatives trying to raise money for expensive ad campaigns report that the wealthy liberals (and, to some extent, labor unions) who wrote huge checks to independent groups for advertising campaigns in the past three election cycles are sitting on their wallets.

Democrats attribute the stinginess to a variety of factors, including the lingering recession, the absence of a single unifying enemy such as former President George W. Bush and fatigue among the wealthy donors who wrote big checks during the past two election cycles.

There’s also a degree of disenchantment with the Obama political operation, which discouraged big-dollar independent activity when then-Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign was shattering fundraising records during the 2008 presidential campaign and has done little to revive it since. In addition, tension between the White House and organized labor, a traditional Democratic ally and source of political cash, has suppressed the totals.

Partly as a result, some of the big donor-funded groups that had spent millions in past elections on ads boosting Democrats are largely dormant, and new liberal groups created to take advantage of a January Supreme Court decision loosening campaign rules have yet to fill the vacuum.

“The Democratic Party’s enthusiasm gap is not only a grass-roots phenomenon, it’s a donor phenomenon as well,” said Mark Longabaugh, who founded and runs Majority Action, a liberal nonprofit group established under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Service code, allowing it to accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and unions.

Majority Action spent about $6 million on so-called independent expenditures boosting Democratic candidates during the 2006 and 2008 election cycles. But it has not reported raising a penny so far this cycle and has scaled back its operations, and Longabaugh did not sound confident that it — or other groups — would be able to ramp up in time to match the anticipated conservative deluge.

“With Democrats in the majority and controlling the White House this go-round, there has been some complacency up until now about the superiority of our cash positions,” said Longabaugh, pointing out that the three national Democratic party committees hold a rare combined fundraising advantage over their Republican counterparts headed into the midterms. “Democrats and progressives need to be very, very careful and vigilant here,” said Longabaugh, “because there’s a real danger that the Republicans are not only going to be able to fill that gap with these outside groups, but they’re going to be able to outspend us, and that’s a danger that nobody quite seems to see coming.”

In fact, of the 10 Democratic-leaning 527 groups that have been most active over the past three election cycles, seven have raised less in the 2010 cycle (some by a wide margin) than their average fundraising tallies at this point in the previous three cycles, a POLITICO analysis found.

Meanwhile, small-donor funded liberal political action committees, such as EMILY’s List and MoveOn.org, are mostly at — or in some cases below — their fundraising paces from past election cycles and seem unlikely to make up the gap with the right’s big-money groups.

The disparity in outside activity bodes well for Republicans, whose 2008 political efforts lacked both enthusiasm and big outside money.

Compounding the Democratic big-donor struggles is the uncertain way the political left has reacted to the January Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which overturned decades of law barring corporations and unions from spending so-called soft money from their general treasuries — as opposed to from their political action committees — on political ads that directly support or oppose candidates.

The decision has in some ways created space between independent liberal efforts and organized labor, traditionally a major financier of both field organizing and advertising boosting Democrats. Some unions have signaled they intend to air more of their own ads, rather than giving to Democratic Party-aligned groups like Longabaugh’s, which had received much of its cash from labor.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, for instance, “will contribute to efforts of other entities, but to a lesser degree than last cycle,” said its deputy political director Ricky Feller, who said the union plans to spend a total of $50 million on its 2010 election efforts. “Post Citizens United, AFSCME is currently using soft dollars to fund express advocacy ads in federal elections.”

That hasn’t been entirely good news for the Democratic establishment. In one of organized labor’s first major races post- Citizens United, a POLITICO analysis of FEC records found unions spent $3.1 million (the lion’s share of which came from Feller’s union) working against Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, a White House-backed conservative Democrat, who fended off a June primary challenge from Bill Halter, a favorite of organized labor.

Feller did not respond to a question about Obama administration criticisms that labor’s cash would have better served the cause had it been spent in the general election supporting Democrats against Republicans. But a spokesman for the larger AFL-CIO pushed back aggressively after Lincoln fended off Halter in June.

“Labor isn’t an arm of the Democratic Party,” Eddie Vale told POLITICO. “It exists to support working families.”
The right’s response to the Citizens United decision has been swifter and more cohesive.

A range of business groups upset with Democrats’ health care and finance overhauls, as well as their efforts to pass climate change legislation, have announced ambitious plans to target Democratic lawmakers, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It typically supports Republicans, but reportedly to spend as much as $75 million on its election efforts — more than double its previous high — and already has disclosed spending $4.1 million on ads.

New independent groups with strong GOP ties also are pledging huge campaigns, some of which will take advantage of the increased fundraising and spending flexibility accorded by Citizens United.

American Crossroads, a two-pronged outfit linked to top Republican strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, has raised at least $9.8 million since launching in March and has spent more than $1 million on ads attacking Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) during their reelection campaigns and boosting Ohio GOP Senate candidate Rob Portman.

The extra-party infrastructure being assembled on the right “is very similar to what [the left] did in 2004,” said Erik Smith, a Democratic operative who worked for the Media Fund and America Coming Together, linked 527 groups that raised a combined $139 million from donors such as George Soros to air ads boosting Sen. John Kerry’s unsuccessful Democratic challenge to Bush’s reelection.

The right’s 2010 efforts should be viewed in the context of what most operatives agree is the left’s advantage in grass-roots, get-out-the-vote infrastructure, Smith said. He added that major donors tend to write their checks closer to Election Day but asserted “there are less people on both sides of the aisle who are willing to write huge checks” and questioned some of the projected tallies on the right.

Yet Democrats for months have anguished over predictions that Citizens United would uncork a torrent of corporate-funded ads, as well as efforts to fulfill the bold fundraising predictions of Gillespie and other GOP leaders — even as a pair of liberal groups being counted on as counterbalances waited for FEC guidance on fundraising for ad spending in the post- Citizens United era.

When the commission announced its guidelines in late July (six months after the Supreme Court ruling) the veteran Democratic congressional operatives who requested the rules clarification — former Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Executive Director Jim Jordan and Clinton administration veterans Monica Dixon and Jeff Forbes — launched a new type of political action committee they named Commonsense Ten.

“There was a little bit of a late start because that clarification came just recently,” Dixon said. “Until that clarification, it was hard to predict what options would be available for people who want to respond to what does appear to look like a great amassing of resources by third party groups on the right.”

Dixon said Commonsense Ten — which, like other so-called Super PACs set up to take advantage of Citizens United, can accept unlimited donations from individuals, corporations and unions to air ads that expressly support or oppose candidates (an avenue previously open only to groups that abided by federal contribution limits and source restrictions) — fits a niche for big donors who want to be more involved in dictating how their money is used without legal questions like those that dogged the Media Fund. Dixon wouldn’t discuss her group’s fundraising efforts, though she did concede “the fundraising environment is definitely challenging. There’s no doubt about that.”

Even outside groups that are bucking the trend don’t seem confident that they’re going to be able to finish out the cycle with more cash than in previous elections.

Patriot Majority, a group of linked 527s that has been airing ads backing Reid, has raised more than $2.2 million this cycle, well ahead of its pace in 2008, when it raised $12.2 million, according to reports on file with the IRS, which show most of its cash came from big labor union checks.

Yet Patriot Majority recently started a so-called Super PAC, and its founder and director, Craig Varoga, didn’t sound optimistic that his efforts or those of other groups would be able to offset the weaker financial positions of Democratic independent groups headed into 2010.

“I don’t think you’re going to see any organization on the progressive or the Democratic side funded to the level that it was two years ago because of the political environment that the Democrats are in,” he said.