WASHINGTON – A grass roots effort aimed at fueling opposition to Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito has become a target of mockery for the nominee’s conservative allies instead – the latest skirmish in an ongoing turf battle among interest groups almost four weeks ahead of the confirmation hearing.

Earlier this month, the liberal activist group Alliance for Justice kicked off a nationwide tour against Judge Alito in which members travel from town to town distributing literature and organizing events against the nominee. Starting in Colorado, the so-called “Rolling Justice” tour stopped in 26 cities in nine days.

But, according to conservative activists, the tour is a disaster. They point to a companion Web site, www.rollingjustice.org, where supporters can follow the tour and post comments online: After more than a week of postings from a tour leader, the site has generated one response, from a woman named “Kendra Sue,” who wrote: “Oh my goodness. You are really braving the cold for a good cause. Keep up the good work …”

The executive director of the Committee for Justice, a key White House ally in the confirmation process, Sean Rushton, said photos on the Rolling Justice Web site suggest weak attendance and a lack of press attention. Of the photos on the site, the largest group pictured is sitting at a restaurant table. A link inviting visitors to get involved leads back to the main Rolling Justice page.

“Please lend me the gun and a single bullet if I ever organize a ‘national happening’ for our group that is this successful,” Mr. Rushton said.

A spokeswoman for the Alliance for Justice, Kelly Landis, denied that the project was a failure. She said the intent was not to generate large crowds. She explained one of the tour’s first events, where no one showed up, according to a Knight Ridder report, as an anomaly that resulted from “sub-zero temperatures and hurricane-force winds.” She said the tour is partly aimed at generating local news coverage, but that its primary goal is to educate.

Today’s leg of the Rolling Justice tour features a boat trip down the coast of Maine.

“It’s really sort of an effort to take the conversation out of the Beltway to the American people,” Ms. Landis said. “It’s an attempt to engage in a dialogue with them and work to make sure their voices are heard. I think part of the reason it’s unclear whether this has been a success is that it’s not something that’s quantifiable. The way to measure success, I think, is to see if people feel like they are engaged in the process, and the sense we have is that people do feel as though they are engaged.”

The president of the Catholic conservative activist group Fidelis, Joseph Cella, had a similar reaction to the Rolling Justice campaign. Mr. Cella, who came under fire from liberal religious groups for running advertisements that defended Judge Alito on the grounds that he would defend the display of religious symbols in public, said they lacked substance.

“It really seems like it’s on stilts,” he said. “This was meant to inflame the grass roots, and it just seems to be falling on deaf ears. Instead of Rolling Justice, they should call it Rolling Scarecrow.”

The Rolling Justice Campaign coincides with petition drive against Judge Alito by the liberal group People for the American Way. The group’s vice president and general counsel, Elliot Mincberg, declined to comment yesterday on the goal of the drive. But conservative activists were spreading reports last week that its goal was a million signatures. A tally on the PFAW Web site showed 55,128 signatures as of early last night.

Conservative activists said they are surprised at what they describe as the relative calm among liberal activists groups three weeks ahead of the confirmation hearings. They said they expected television blitzes rather than petition drives and bus tours, but they conceded that the former are likely to come as the hearing nears.

“They’ve got more money than we do, but they’re not spending it,” one conservative activist who asked not to be identified said. “I don’t think the left is out-muscling anyone. Certainly there is no resonance in the grass roots against Alito. They have to slam money on the table for television ads if they want to get anywhere, and they’re not.”