What Next for Ralph Reed?
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
New York Times
WASHINGTON, July 21 — As a seasoned political strategist, Ralph Reed knew from the first returns on Tuesday night that the news was bad and even laughed at the television pundits who suggested that the race was still up for grabs.
But this time the loss he was assessing was not a client’s but his own first bid to win elective office — the lieutenant governorship of Georgia. It would have been the next big step in a seemingly unstoppable career that had already vaulted him to the head of the Christian Coalition at the age of 29, to the cover of Time magazine at the age of 33, and to the inner circle of President Bush’s political advisers by the age of 39.
His campaign had struggled for months to overcome the disclosure of e-mail correspondence between Mr. Reed and the lobbyist Jack Abramoff that suggested a mercenary streak at odds with Mr. Reed’s Christian image. When the evangelical newsmagazine World carried a series of reports on the subject, the accusations became impossible to dismiss as mere liberal media bias.
And from the first returns in the Republican primary, Mr. Reed knew that the suburban Atlanta precincts with the biggest megachurches, the conservative Christian strongholds essential to his campaign, had turned against him, friends who watched with him said.
“Our own publication did this hatchet job on him, and we lost that core base of people,” said his friend Tim Echols, founder of TeenPact, a Christian conservative youth group. “It was very hurtful to Ralph.”
Now, a dozen years after Time proclaimed him “The Right Hand of God,” some are preparing Mr. Reed’s political obituary, wondering what he will do after his rejection by the evangelical churchgoers whose support formed the foundation of his reputation as a political activist and his personal fortune as a political consultant.
“Ralph will have to totally reinvent himself,” said Matt Towery, a political analyst based in Atlanta who once worked as campaign chairman for Newt Gingrich.
(The rest of the article is here.)
New York Times
WASHINGTON, July 21 — As a seasoned political strategist, Ralph Reed knew from the first returns on Tuesday night that the news was bad and even laughed at the television pundits who suggested that the race was still up for grabs.
But this time the loss he was assessing was not a client’s but his own first bid to win elective office — the lieutenant governorship of Georgia. It would have been the next big step in a seemingly unstoppable career that had already vaulted him to the head of the Christian Coalition at the age of 29, to the cover of Time magazine at the age of 33, and to the inner circle of President Bush’s political advisers by the age of 39.
His campaign had struggled for months to overcome the disclosure of e-mail correspondence between Mr. Reed and the lobbyist Jack Abramoff that suggested a mercenary streak at odds with Mr. Reed’s Christian image. When the evangelical newsmagazine World carried a series of reports on the subject, the accusations became impossible to dismiss as mere liberal media bias.
And from the first returns in the Republican primary, Mr. Reed knew that the suburban Atlanta precincts with the biggest megachurches, the conservative Christian strongholds essential to his campaign, had turned against him, friends who watched with him said.
“Our own publication did this hatchet job on him, and we lost that core base of people,” said his friend Tim Echols, founder of TeenPact, a Christian conservative youth group. “It was very hurtful to Ralph.”
Now, a dozen years after Time proclaimed him “The Right Hand of God,” some are preparing Mr. Reed’s political obituary, wondering what he will do after his rejection by the evangelical churchgoers whose support formed the foundation of his reputation as a political activist and his personal fortune as a political consultant.
“Ralph will have to totally reinvent himself,” said Matt Towery, a political analyst based in Atlanta who once worked as campaign chairman for Newt Gingrich.
(The rest of the article is here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home