Ready to attack Obama, if some money arrives

The second spot highlights a Roman Catholic elementary school roster from Indonesia showing that Mr. Obama registered as a Muslim. The campaign said that the notation was probably made because Mr. Obama’s stepfather was nominally a Muslim but that the candidate had never been a Muslim. He is a committed Christian.

The site has helped Mr. Brown raise $100,000 in a month and a half. On Friday, after Mr. Obama’s announcement, Mr. Brown received 400 contributions, more than the usual weekly figure, totaling more than $15,000.

Mr. Brown is spreading the word about his videos through an e-mail list that he said had 2.5 million names. His goal is to produce at least one Web advertisement every two weeks, spread the word with e-mail and hope they catch on.

Mr. Brown is also using two conservative direct mail businesses to raise money, Response Dynamics and the Richard Norman Company, which ran the mail campaign for the Swift Boat effort, as well as two telemarketing businesses.

Although he said he was mostly in the testing phase with the mailings, Mr. Brown has put out 700,000 pieces and collected more than $600,000 by mail this year, a vast majority in the last two months. That period is after his last campaign finance filing.

Mr. Brown has also created a network of organizations that he can use to attack Mr. Obama, including two political action committees, the National Campaign Fund and the Legacy Committee, that are governed by strict limits on campaign donations, as well as a 527 group, Citizens for a Safe and Prosperous America.

Mr. Brown’s financial limits were obvious with his most recent advertisement, questioning Mr. Obama’s religious background. He spent $5,000 to broadcast it. A cable company in the Detroit area approved it. Another kept Mr. Brown in legal limbo.

With most big-money conservative donors remaining cautious, Mr. Brown is focusing more on his political action committees. That could limit his ability to raise large sums. The maximum donation to such entities is $5,000.

Political action committees are much freer to attack candidates than 527s, which are technically limited to advocating on issues and cannot expressly call for a candidate’s election or defeat.

For conservatives hoping to repeat the Swift Boat effort, Federal Election Commission rulings 2004 put such advertisements, which questioned a candidate’s character and fitness for office, off limits to 527s specifically.

Mr. Brown, a gregarious evangelical churchgoer who likes to boast that he has slept with one woman in his life, his wife, said that he merely enjoyed the interchange of ideas and that there was nothing personal about his attacks.

He said he earned a living as an investment writer and a speaker, working in politics part time. His résumé includes setting up a 900 number in the 1992 election so people could listen to recorded telephone conversations purported to be between Bill Clinton and Gennifer Flowers.

But there are boundaries even Mr. Brown is unwilling to cross. He said many potential large donors had lost interest after he explained to them that certain harder-hitting advertisements that they favored were not possible through a 527.

His estimates of what he might be able to raise by the fall, assuming that he does not reach his imaginary “tipping point,” are in the $8 million range. That would be hardly consequential, especially in the face of the expected advertising onslaught from Mr. Obama.

Mr. Brown is hopeful, however, that major donors will step forward. “The vehicle will be there,” he said. “The talent will be there. Everything’s prepared.”

Kate Zernike contributed reporting from New York.

This story, Ready to attack Obama, if some money arrives, originally appeared in The New York Times.

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