Will Ralph Reed crap out?

[RedEarth]

Will Ralph Reed crap out?
The one-time golden boy of the Christian right did the bidding of Abramoff's casino clients. Will the unholy alliance be his undoing?
By Michael Scherer

Apr. 06, 2006 | On the campaign trail in south Georgia, Ralph Reed, the Republican strategist who created the Christian Coalition, wears shiny black cowboy boots -- full quill ostrich leather -- to help give him the swagger of a man still on the make. He is running for lieutenant governor in the Peach State, his first campaign for public office, but he wants everyone to know that he is not just another local boy trying to break into state politics. As we mingle at a private reception at Sea Palms Resort on the state's eastern shore, he tells me, "This isn't my first rodeo."

It just may be his last, however. Reed has been weathering a blizzard of revelations about his partnership with the convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Prominent state Republicans have called for him to drop out of the race before the April 28 filing deadline. A recent poll showed that his candidacy might even hurt other Republicans, like Gov. Sonny Perdue, who are on the ticket in November. Matt Towery, a pollster who is a former aide to Newt Gingrich, said the Democrats could easily skewer Reed with an ad campaign. "He could just be tattooed by the Democrats with paid media," Towery explained. "Most people in this state don't know who Ralph Reed is."

As we now know, Reed, the former "cherub-in-chief" of American politics, traded his halo to work as a gun for hire in Abramoff's operation, secretly rallying conservative Christians to do the bidding of Abramoff's casino clients. This was, in many ways, an understandable role for Reed, a political prodigy, who started in politics as a disciple of Abramoff, the former chairman of the College Republicans. "I used to tell people he was going to be either president of the United States or Al Capone," Reed's mother, Marcy, once told USA Today. By the end of the 1990s, when Abramoff came calling, Reed seemed destined for the White House, at least as a top political aide. He was known as the organizational mastermind of the religious right, joining with televangelist Pat Robertson to bring the GOP to Jesus.

Those exploits, as well as his recent public career as an advisor to President Bush, have given him an aura of celebrity in Georgia political circles. He led the state Republican Party in 2002, during the phenomenal upset that unseated Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, a wounded Vietnam veteran. Two years later, Reed led George W. Bush's 2004 Southern campaign, delivering every state of the former Confederacy. "Until you have seen it firsthand you won't appreciate it," Glynn County's GOP leader Kevin Gough had warned me. "He is like a rock star."

In person, Reed, 44, doesn't look anything like a rock star. If it were not for his boots, his tie and the folded four-cornered handkerchief in his sport coat, the Rod Stewart of Southern politics could easily be mistaken for a gangly teenager. He stands about four-fifths the size of a full-grown man, with a doll's nose, bronzed skin and a wide smile. He can easily disappear in a crowd. But when he speaks, he can also command the room, instantly transforming himself from a choirboy to a statesman, the NASCAR fan's Bill Clinton.



http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/04/06/reed/print.html

[Canuckistanian]

1. Looks like the skewering has begun

"I want to be invisible. I do guerilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night." ---Ralph Reed, Norfolk Virginian Pilot, 11/9/91

[tanyev]

2. Now that is a beautiful photoshop.

:rofl: