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WASHINGTON - There are few, if any, people on Capitol Hill who know whether Chief Justice William Rehnquist will step down this week - at the moment, it's the most coveted secret in Washington politics.

But that has not prevented outside groups from launching their public relations campaign over a potential Supreme Court nomination - one that is expected to be of unprecedented scale.

This past week, the conservative group Progress for America began airing $700,000 in ads intended to "warn Americans" that "liberal attack groups are hungry to smear almost any potential candidate" who does not meet their test.

On the left, the People for the American Way Foundation has sent out thick reports to members of the press arguing that if Mr. Bush chooses a nominee as conservative as Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia - some 100 Supreme Court precedents "protecting seven decades of social justice gains" could be overturned.

The precampaign campaigning is just a glimpse of what's to come. In Washington's viciously partisan environment, outside groups have been preparing for this potential moment since President Bush was elected. They have formed coalitions of several hundreds groups poised to spend millions of dollars in an effort to sustain or defeat Mr. Bush's nominee to the high court.

The recent struggle over Mr. Bush's 10 most controversial picks for the federal courts provided a dress rehearsal for the now-looming drama.

Progress for America spent close to $4 million advocating for several of Mr. Bush's most contested nominees, and the People for the American Way Foundation spent $5 million on its campaign to prevent Senate Republicans from abolishing filibusters of judicial nominees - a move that became known as the 'nuclear option.' Both groups coordinated their efforts with dozens of smaller groups that helped hone the message through efforts on the ground.

Those campaigns - from the television advertisements to the rallies to the thousands of telephone calls to wavering senators on the nominees and the so-called nuclear option - solidified the structure that is now in place to handle a Supreme Court nomination.

"The fights that we've had over those 10 judges, as well as our push against the exercise of the 'nuclear option' gave us valuable lessons," said Nancy Zirkin, deputy executive director at the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights. "We found out that there are a lot of people in this country that are watching.… We have huge networks now."

For the past few years in anticipation of a nomination to the high court, the coalition groups on both sides have prepared exhaustive dossiers on the 12 to 15 people Mr. Bush is rumored to be considering for the post.

Researchers have picked apart the speeches, court decisions, and legal journal articles of those potential candidates. Both sides have prepared talking points. Groups on the right have singled out compelling aspects in each candidate's personal story or record, which they will highlight as the frenzy of TV appearances and advertising begins. They have also tried to anticipate each candidate's vulnerabilities and how to respond to attacks.

"We are prepared - literally within an hour of an announcement we can be ready," said Jay Sekulow, a key player in one of the major Supreme Court coalitions on the right and the Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice - a public-interest law firm founded in part by Pat Robertson.

"There's never been this much of an organized effort on our side. Ever," he said.

Mr. Sekulow was one of a handful of conservative leaders and former government officials tapped by Bush administration officials to create the first coalition to coordinate support for President Bush's judicial nominees. In the past few years, Mr. Sekulow has worked closely with President George H.W. Bush's former White House counsel, C. Boyden Gray, former Attorney General Ed Meese, and scholars at the Federalist Society think tank on those efforts.

Recently, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Manuel Miranda split off to form another coalition, which was briefly the National Coalition to End Judicial Filibusters, and has now been renamed the Third Branch Conference.

Mr. Miranda said he wanted to create a group that was less centralized around Washington-based leaders and lawyers. Mr. Miranda said the Third Branch now holds weekly calls to strategize with groups as varied as anti-abortion groups in Maine to chambers of commerce groups in Michigan, and that the list is growing.

A third coalition, the Judicial Confirmation Network, is being spearheaded by a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Progress for America is likely to be the major fund-raising power channeling the message of some of those groups; the 527 group recently announced that they would spend $18 million on a campaign to support Mr. Bush's potential nominee to the high court.

On the left, not long after Mr. Bush was elected, People for the American Way banded together with other prominent progressive and liberal groups - including the Alliance for Justice, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and the abortion rights group NARAL - to form the Coalition for a Fair and Independent Judiciary.

The group has been meeting to discuss potential Supreme Court vacancies at least once a week since 2001 when Mr. Bush sent his first slate of federal judicial nominees to the Senate, but a number of the leaders have worked together on Supreme Court nominations for more than two decades.

During the confirmation battles of the nominees to the lower courts, People for the American Way's president, Ralph Neas, said his organization converted their fifth floor conference room into a war room to help coordinate the efforts of the groups within the Coalition.

The 2,500 square foot room is now equipped with 40 computer workstations and 75 phone banks - where staff would spring into action to defeat a Supreme Court nominee they deem unacceptable. Mr. Neas said he expects 75 of his 120 staff members to be engaged and he said the coalition also wanted to set up what will be the equivalent of presidential campaign team to supplement the coalition's efforts.

They have lined up former President Clinton aides Carter Eskew and Joe Lockhart as consultants; along with pollsters and aides to conduct focus groups. A number of the aides, such as Mr. Neas, were formative players in the bitter fight over President Reagan's 1987 nominee, Robert Bork.

But Mr. Neas says the consequences of this next moment are even more significant than that drawn-out struggle.

"More and more people - perhaps than any other time in our history - understand what's at stake," Mr. Neas said, noting the court's frequent 5-4 decisions. "Hopefully there's going to be this extraordinary national debate involving millions of people because what happens is not some, arcane legal result but a nomination that could affect the lives of all of us now and our children and our grandchildren."

And Wendy Wright, senior policy director at Concerned Women for America, echoed those sentiments from a conservative viewpoint, stating that there is perhaps no issue that will draw more people in than an appointment to the Supreme Court.

"Christians had been pretty much sitting on the back bench, just living out their lives, raising their families, not involved at all until we felt assaulted one after another with cases of judges forcing cultural changes upon us," Ms. Wright said, adding that a driving force among conservatives during the last election cycle were the court decisions on gay marriage.

"The interest level is so high regarding judges that people are literally waiting by their computers and their phones for marching orders," she said. "They're just waiting for the gun to go off."

Contact Maeve Reston at: mreston@nationalpress.com or 202-488-3479.

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