The Republicans are broke. They don't even have enough money to fund the campaign of a single party member.
Many prominent groups and privates citizens (like T. Boone Pickens) are sitting this one out. Pickens, for example, wrote a 7 figure check some years ago to help the Republicans, not this time. He's putting his money on bi-partisan efforts now. Some contributors don't want to be associated with efforts that could back-fire and cast them in a bad light. As happened to some with the "Swift Boat" attacks on Kerry.
McCain himself was critical of many of these so called "Attack Dog" groups and now they're asking, "Why should we stick our neck out for him?" McCain is the supposed Republican candidate for the next POTUS election at this point.
To date no group has come forth with an anti-Obama campaign (CC being a notable acception on that front
). There are some anti Obama books coming out soon, as well as some pro-Obama books, could be a draw (on the Obama side, crayons if you like to color instead of draw).
On balance, the Democrats are also seeing a decline in funding for these private attack dog groups. All though no where near the deficit Republicans are running. Some speculation is that the Obama money machine is so well oiled all ready there is little need to feed these independant groups.
The 527 groups can take unlimited donations so all it would take is a few BIG checks and they could be up and running in no time. So far, that hasn't happened, (all though rumor has it the Gasholes may come to the rescue by donating several BNL series cars).
