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Thanks to the brass of its chairman, Dolan, N.C.P.A.C. lately has drawn more fire from its foes than other conservative ;roups. The notoriety, including an attack against it in last month's AFL-CIO politcal newsletter, helps in the competition br conservative dollars. N.C.P.A.C. can use the money. Debts forced Dolan to suspend his own $2,000-a-month salary this ;ummer, and he is trying to raise $700,000 for the opening shots of his "Target '80" effort to defeat five prominent Democratic Senators: Frank Church of Idaho, Alan Cranston of California, George McGovern of South Dakota, John Culver of Iowa and Birch Bayh of Indiana.
Dolan got into politics as a Republican volunteer in his native state of Connecticut and at 21 was a paid organizer in the 1972 Nixon campaign. "I'm ashamed to admit that now," he says. In 1976, as a protest gesture against the major parties, he voted for the Libertarians.
Says he: "The Republican Party is a fraud.
It's a social club where rich people go to pick their noses."
Despite such contempt for the G.O.P.
—a feeling returned by many in the Republican Establishment—the party is the tude was responsible for the void. In fact, the silo was part of the obsolescent Titan system, which has been mostly replaced by Minuteman missiles. A mailing prepared for N.C.P.A.C. by Viguerie calls Church "the radical... who singlehanded has presided over the destruction of the FBI and the CIA." Church protests that his enemies are using "the big-lie technique."
Dolan can spend as much as he raises, despite the federal restriction that normally limits one political action committee to $10,000 per candidate. The reason is that N.C.P.A.C. is exploiting the "independent expenditure" loophole permitted under a 1976 Supreme Court ruling. This allows free spending provided that there is no connection between the advertiser and the political beneficiary of the advertising. In Idaho, Church does not even have an announced opponent yet. His probable rival is Republican Congressman Steven Symms, who says that he has "no reason to be interested in a dirty campaign" against Church.
That's fine with Dolan, who tells a group of prospective N.C.P.A.C. contributors: "Steve Symms will never have short-term beneficiary of much of the movement's activities. True, Viguerie is taking on more Democratic House candidates as clients. But most of the New Right hit lists feature only Democrats.
The most important is Church. According to the congressional scorecards maintained by both liberal and conservative lobbying organizations, Church is closer to the Democratic center than to the left. But because of his celebrity as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, defeating him would be a big victory for the New Right. And he is particularly vulnerable because Idaho usually votes conservative in federal elections.