Who needs the RNC anymore when you have outside groups?

At a time when the Republican National Committee remains weighed down by debt, outside conservative groups, freed from contribution limits by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision last year, are playing an ever larger role and operating in an increasingly coordinated fashion. In the coming months, the conservative groups will consult among themselves as they open pre-election advertising barrages against Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats.

They have begun conversations about how to divide up the swing states where each group is likely to focus its energies, with some like Americans for Prosperity expecting to shift chiefly to Senate races and the White House. Others, like the new Congressional Leadership Fund, will look to preserve the Republican hold on the House…

At a time when the Republican presidential primary race has featured increasingly tough stances against illegal immigration, the independent groups have begun an aggressive program of outreach to Hispanics, hoping to offset Democratic gains among a critical voting bloc.

And they are planning to coordinate offensives in states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where money and organizing could pay dividends simultaneously in the presidential, Congressional and local legislative races.