The fund-raising drive, Ickes said, is meant to replace the soft money funding that helped the Democratic Party run $75 million in issue ads in 2000. The Media Fund, he said, can raise unlimited amounts to finance radio and television from late March until the conventions.
"The critical distinction here is we are not a party committee," Ickes said.
Ickes said the "Hate Bush Meeting" label may have been tacked on by one of the many people who received the e-mail invitation before it eventually reached Drudge.
The New York Daily News reported Tuesday that a man in the Midwest who declined to reveal his name added the "hate Bush" phrase in the e-mail's subject line.
Jim Dyke, communications director of the Republican National Committee, said wherever the phrase came from, it was "descriptive of the liberal elites' " view of Bush.
Dyke added: "I doubt that anyone who is going [to the Tuesday meeting] disagrees with the e-mail title."
The e-mail received by The Times billed the event only as a "Big Meeting."
But Ickes said: "Those of us who are involved in these organizations on a day-to-day basis don't hate Bush. We don't like his policies."
What coalition supporters are concerned about, he said, is the war in Iraq, job losses, the federal deficit, the weakening of environmental protections and the prospect of a federal judiciary -- especially the Supreme Court -- with a number of Bush appointees.
"We see him as representing very radical policies and leading the country in the wrong direction," he said.
America Coming Together has already received a $10-million pledge from billionaire philanthropist George Soros -- a contribution that infuriated some Republican leaders.
Marge Tabankin, a Hollywood political consultant and one of the hosts of Tuesday's meeting, said Republicans "are looking at what the Democrats are doing and they're getting really nervous and they're trying to blow it up. What they're realizing is that this time around, there is likely to be a more level playing field, financially."
If the meeting demonstrated the depth of opposition to the Bush administration among many in Hollywood, it also underscored the hostility many conservatives feel toward what they term the "cultural elite."
Calls and faxes attacking the gathering's sponsors -- some of them anti-Semitic -- came in from around the country from people who heard about it on conservative talk radio.
But in Los Angeles, the unexpected buzz caused the event to mushroom from 100 people to 230 -- prompting the organizers to find a bigger room at the Beverly Hilton and to turn away many people who wanted to come, organizers said.
Among those expected to attend were Christine Lahti, Aaron Sorkin, Rob Reiner, Heather Thomas, producer Paula Weinstein, and "MASH" television star Mike Farrell.
Director Robert Greenwald, a co-host, joked that organizers would have to thank their detractors -- "or put them on retainer."
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O'Connor reported from Los Angeles; Brownstein from Washington. Times staff writer Allison Hoffman contributed to this report.
