WASHINGTON – With two years to go and no opponent on the horizon, Senator Clinton’s fund-raisers yesterday began appealing for money for her 2006 re-election campaign.

Mrs. Clinton’s fund-raising committee, The Friends of Hillary, yesterday asked donors to “fight back” against what it called a “new flood” of shrill anti-Hillary rhetoric coming from conservative groups it says are already raising their own funds to defeat her.

In an e-mail to supporters, the committee quoted unnamed groups as stating “Bill and Hillary Clinton are outlaws” who “must be held accountable for their crimes.”

Patti Solis Doyle, who signed the fund-raising appeal, told supporters they cannot wait until 2006 to raise money. “We have to have the funds on hand even before the campaign begins, so that we can respond right away,” she wrote.

The e-mail also noted that Mrs. Clinton had “put her own campaign on hold” last year while she raised money for Democratic presidential nominee Senator Kerry and other Democratic candidates.

But several Republican fund-raisers contacted yesterday said they had not yet mobilized for the 2006 race, and they said the unnamed e-mail messages may be coming from fringe groups.

The executive director of GOPAC, John Morgan, said his group did not send such e-mail. “GOPAC did not send out any fund-raising e-mails calling Bill and Hillary Clinton ‘outlaws,’ and I doubt that any such strong pejoratives would be used in our materials,” he said.

“I don’t think any mainstream conservative group would say, ‘Give us money because Hillary Clinton is a ‘criminal.’ That’s dumb. There are legitimate things you can say that are not hyperbolic but are just as powerful,” said the former political director of GOPAC, which raises money for Republican races nationwide.

A board member of Softer Voices, a New York-based conservative advocacy group that plans to run ads during the 2006 race, Lisa Schiffren, said the group is still planning a strategy and was not yet sending out appeals.

“Whoever sends [Friends of Hillary] e-mail is trying to start their arms race by invoking some unnamed threat, when this woman has as clear a shot at a Senate seat as Schumer did. There is no one on the horizon – and I wish there were,” Ms. Schiffren said.

Ms. Solis Doyle did not return repeated calls yesterday. Mrs. Clinton’s spokeswoman also did not respond to requests for comment.

The president of another conservative fund-raising group, Club For Growth, Stephen Moore, also said his group was not involved.

However, he predicted that once a Republican candidate is chosen, the race would be “the biggest race in the country” and possibly the most expensive in history.

“If Pataki or Giuliani runs against her, 50 million is not out of the question, or it could get up to a hundred. It could be more than was ever raised for a Senate race,” he said.

Mrs. Clinton raised $30.2 million in 2000 and spent $29.9 million on her race, winning 55% of the vote. Her chief opponent, Rick Lazio, spent $40.6 million.

The senator has $5.3 million in her account now, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign donations.

Although Mrs. Clinton has taken centrist positions on many issues in the Senate, she is still viewed by her critics as unacceptably liberal, and as a useful target in fund-raising appeals.

“Just as it was easy for Democrats to raise money against John Ashcroft or George W. Bush, it is easy for conservatives to raise money against Hillary Clinton,” Mr. Roff said.

“Hillary is the Darth Vader of politics from the perspective of conservatives,” Mr. Moore added. “Without the villain of Tom Daschle around now, Hillary has taken the role of public enemy number one.”