E-Mail This Article to a Friend 527 UPDATE Wanted: Conservatives with money to burn BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN

Attacking John Kerry has proven to be a gold mine for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who last week disclosed a list of 684 people who have contributed a total of $1.9 million to their effort since late April. Well, they’re not the only ones willing to bash the Massachusetts senator if someone will put up the money.

Take Michael Cronin. He is the chairman and director of the newly formed Vietnam EXPOWS, created last week "to do whatever we can to oppose the election of John Kerry as president," Cronin says from his home in Potomac, Maryland.

Cronin, a former prisoner of war, believes Kerry’s activism upon his return from Vietnam provided aid and comfort to the Vietcong — and prolonged the stay at the "Hanoi Hilton" for POWs like himself. Cronin says he and other former POWs decided to organize after watching Kerry tout his service at the Democratic National Convention. "This guy who basically sided with the enemy wants to run for president as a war hero — it was just too much," Cronin says.

Cronin doesn’t have much in the way of press-relations skills — the Phoenix was his first call from the media, he says — and he has thus far done little more than put up a Web site and send a message to members of another POW organization, asking for donations. "Whether or not we get much beyond that depends on how much money comes in," he says. He would like to put full-page ads in battleground-state newspapers, and do interviews in major media markets in those states. He claims the Web site (www.vietnamexpows.org), which went up Saturday morning, had 10,000 hits by Monday afternoon.

The group lists among its directors Paul Galanti, who appeared in one of the Swifties’ TV ads. That might hurt Vietnam EXPOWS’s credibility and claims of independence, but could also serve as a seal of approval to some of those 684 deep-pocketed Swift Boat Veterans funders.

Across the river in Arlington, Virginia, two attorneys — and fantasy-football fanatics — in a Washington, DC, firm have partnered to attack Kerry on something they consider more critical than Vietnam: sports.

Jeff Larroca and Dino Panagopoulos, who describe themselves as supporters of President George W. Bush but "madly independent," formed Football Fans for Truth as a 527 this Monday. Apparently they got a little out of hand on the first weekend of the new NFL season. "We were out drinking and got to laughing about John Kerry going into Michigan and saying, ‘Go Hawkeyes,’ " says Larroca. "And then he was in Wisconsin and referred to ‘Lambert Field.’"

For the unaware, the Hawkeyes play in Iowa, and the Green Bay Packers play at Lambeau Field. Larroca and Panagopoulos hope to raise enough money to run billboard ads highlighting Kerry’s errors in the offended states. "We’re hoping he’ll gaffe in all the battleground states," Larroca says. Their initial plea for money — sent to other members of their fantasy league — includes a photo of how Kerry "catches the tight spiral like a girlie man." Larroca and Panagopoulos are hoping the e-mail spreads enough to become a blogosphere topic, sparking contributions to the cause. They don’t have enough cash for a Web site yet (their account stands at $100), but in other ways they are off to a better start than Cronin and his EXPOWS — the Phoenix was their second media call.