[MrB]

It’s clear what was happening when the liberal sounding groups sailed through while the conservative groups were stymied,

even to the point that the same guy, after being thwarted with a conservative sounding name, reapplied with a liberal sounding name and was approved immediately.

[Still Thinking]

Exactly. That's what I didn't understand, is when this became apparent, just start naming your groups with liberal-sounding names, and make sure to apply before actually engaging in any political activity, so you're not negatively on the radar of any lib pols. If they want a mission statement, go on about "educating people in progressive and liberal activism" (conservatism is far more about actual progress than the modern left, and "liberal" actually has to do with liberty, so...), and "civil rights" and "community organizing for political action", and so on.

If the IRS came back later and complained that you misled them, they'd have two problems: first, all that stuff applies just fine in its dictionary definition to conservative causes and action, and second, if you were honest about your proposed degree of political involvement, in order to complain about you misleading them about your political bent, they have to admit there's two sets of rules, which they can't do.