WASHINGTON — A veteran conservative activist and Bill Clinton's former political adviser are trying to raise $3.5 million to produce a movie critical of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, aiming its release for October or November — just ahead of the 2008 presidential caucuses and primaries.

Dave Bossie, who during the 2004 campaign produced a feature-length response to liberal filmmaker Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," is teaming with Dick Morris, who advised former President Clinton on and off from the late 1970s to 1996. Morris has become one of Hillary Clinton's most vocal critics, saying on television recently that he would leave the country should she be elected. Bossie said their movie, yet unnamed, will "educate the American people about Hillary Clinton.

"Clearly, she is an incredibly divisive and an incredibly liberal opponent to all things that we hold dear, and so we believe that it is important for the American people to really know all there is to know about her," Bossie said.

But critics say Bossie and Morris are collaborating on a "swift-boating" attack — reference to a documentary on 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry by a group of Vietnam veterans calling themselves the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer said Clinton is not overlooking the Bossie-Morris project.

"One of the lessons of the 2004 campaign was to take any effort to distort your candidate's record seriously," Singer said. "We're not going to allow anyone to get away with smearing Sen. Clinton or misrepresenting her record."

Bossie, president of the conservative group Citizens United, did not shy away from the Swift Boat comparison.

"Those guys were very effective," Bossie said of Swift Boat organization." ... People who know Hillary Clinton the best will bring forward their stories. If that is swift-boating, so be it."

Morris refused an interview request. But on a recent Fox TV broadcast, he called the New York senator "phony, manipulative, artificial and contrived."

Morris advised Bill Clinton early in his Arkansas governorship in the late 1970s. Morris was also an architect of the former president's recovery from his party's devastating congressional losses in 1994. Morris helped Clinton devise the "triangulation" strategy of running against Republicans and Democrats in Congress that led to Clinton's 1996 re-election.

However, Morris resigned on the eve of the 1996 Democratic Convention in Chicago after a tabloid reported he had had an extramarital relationship with a prostitute.

Bossie said Citizens United was soliciting donations for the Clinton movie, and the organization's Web site has an online appeal that says: "Hillary Movie Coming Soon!" He said fund raising has begun, and the money is coming in relatively small denominations.

If produced, the Clinton movie will be Bossie's sixth. "Celsius: 41.11," the response to Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" attack on the Bush administration, is likely his best known. Bossie has also produced movies critical of the ACLU, illegal immigration and the United Nations — the latter with actor Ron Silver. Bossie said he is also working on a movie about Iran.

The Clinton movie, he said, will be made available to theaters and in DVD form.

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