The Devil Inside (The Nation)

[NMMNG]

Ralph Reed is going to own this room. Granted, it's only a standard-issue campus auditorium at Emory University, half filled at best for the annual Georgia College Republicans convention. But to the former boy wonder of evangelical politics, it looks like heavenly shelter on this drizzly February morning. The Christian Coalition co-founder's first campaign for public office--lieutenant governor of Georgia, a position Reed and his fans envision as a stepping stone to bigger things--has turned into a waking nightmare. Every week brings a new revelation about the millions in dirty money Reed earned by duping his fellow evangelicals into putting their political muscle behind "Casino Jack" Abramoff's gambling clients. Reed's huge leads in both popularity polls and fundraising have almost disappeared. Instead of making his triumphant debut as a politician, the man Time magazine called "The Right Hand of God" is fast becoming the new poster boy for Christian-right corruption.

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From 1999 to 2002 Reed's Georgia-based consulting firm, Century Strategies, set up "anti-gambling" coalitions in Alabama, Louisiana and Texas to oppose proposed new casinos (and in one case to shut down an existing one). Reed convinced dozens of influential pastors in those states, along with some of the biggest national names on the evangelical right--Dobson, Phyllis Schlafly, Gary Bauer, Donald Wildmon, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson--to mobilize their flocks in a series of successful anti-casino campaigns. The front groups Reed established, with upright names like Citizens Against Legalized Gambling, organized religious rallies, sent out mass mailings decrying the evils of wagering and flooded legislators and state officials with thousands of calls from concerned Christians.

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In Texas alone, Reed reportedly raked in more than $4 million for organizing fake anti-gambling campaigns and strong-arming Republican officials while failing to register with the state as a lobbyist, a criminal offense. (He also failed to register for his clandestine lobbying efforts on behalf of another Abramoff client, Channel One, the in-school network loathed by "pro-family" conservatives.) Three public-interest groups in Texas filed a complaint against Reed in December for failing to register his lobbying; he could have been jailed for up to one year if convicted. But in March prosecutor David Escamilla declined to pursue the investigation, citing a two-year statute of limitations in the Texas lobbying law. By hiding his activities cannily enough that it took three years to expose them, Reed squirmed out of trouble on a technicality.

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Given the Reed scandal's potential to erode evangelicals' faith in politics, it's no surprise that the main reaction among movement leaders has thus far been "an embarrassing silence," to quote Ken Connor, the former head of Dobson's Family Research Council. Even Richard Land, the normally forthcoming Southern Baptist powerhouse, has been rendered speechless. ("Dr. Land has decided to pass on this topic," his spokeswoman told The Nation after first agreeing to an interview.) President Bush's staff has gone to considerable lengths to keep Reed, who chaired the Bush/Cheney campaign in the Southeast in 2004, safely away from the President--and from a photo op Reed desperately needs--during his most recent appearances in Georgia. One notable exception to the official silence has been Marvin Olasky, a longtime Texas adviser of Bush who literally wrote the book on "compassionate conservatism." Olasky, editor of the most popular organ of the evangelical right, World magazine, has been outspoken in his view that Reed "has damaged Christian political work by confirming for some the stereotype that evangelicals are easily manipulated and that evangelical leaders use moral issues to line their pockets." World reporter Jamie Dean has filed a series of fearless Reed exposes, causing a sensation in the evangelical community. Her dogged questioning of Christian-right leaders whom Reed dragged into his "anti-gambling" campaigns inspired sharp criticism from the most powerful of them all, Focus on the Family leaders Dobson and Tom Minnery, in a February radio broadcast. "They have a reporter who wanted me to dump on Ralph Reed," said an exasperated Minnery, explaining why he refused to answer questions from World.

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Much more at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060417/moser

[mhr]

1. More Than Most - Fundies Need A Father Figure To Cheer For

Explains their faith, in part, to begin with.

Reed will be fine, all sins forgiven.

[Stevepol]

2. As long as he keeps Diebold happy, he'll win the election handily.

[Gman]

3. If the fundies can be made to feel adequately disillusioned

and made to feel completely used, and lose faith in their leaders, Democrats would be able to pick up more seats in Congress than we can possibly imagine.

[NMMNG]

4. That would be wonderful indeed

If the wall of lies comes tumbling down we have a chance...