Freedom’s Watch ‘paralyzed’ by ‘gridlock’ and ‘infighting.’

Last summer, the right-wing group Freedom’s Watch spent $15 million “in a nationwide advertising blitz supporting President Bush’s troop escalation in Iraq.” In September, The New York Times heralded it as “a conservative answer to the nine-year-old liberal MoveOn.org.” But a new article in the Times today admits that Freedom’s Watch “has been mostly quiet, beset by internal problems that have paralyzed it”:

Backers of Freedom’s Watch once talked about spending some $200 million, a figure that officials now say was exaggerated. Lending to the aura of ambition, the organization moved into a state-of-the-art 10,000-square-foot office in Washington and hired a staff of about 20, with talk of bringing in scores more for a vigorous campaign to promote conservative issues.

Behind the scenes, however, Freedom’s Watch has been plagued by gridlock and infighting, leaving it struggling for direction, according to several Republican operatives familiar with the organization who were granted anonymity so they could be candid about the group’s problems.