Ralph Reed's Creed
The devil can cite scripture
for his purpose. Ralph Reed generally prefers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Martin
Luther King Jr., our secular saints. But the Christian Coalition's executive
director makes an exception for one biblical passage, a verse from Paul. It
appears in his book Active Faith , in his op-eds, in interviews: "I have
become all things to all people that I may by all means win some." It is an apt
motto for Reed, a thoroughly political statement that defines a thoroughly
political man. Critics on the left blame Reed for infecting politics with
religious fanaticism. In fact, Reed's achievement is exactly the opposite: He's
turned religious fanaticism into mere politics.
So it's
fitting that Reed is embarking on a career as a political consultant, a
profession where everything is mere politics. Last week Reed announced his
resignation from Pat Robertson's organization, which Reed has built into the
Republican Party's most powerful interest group. When he steps down Sept. 1,
the 35-year-old Reed will move to Atlanta and open Century Strategies, which
will advise "pro-family, pro-life, and pro-free-enterprise candidates."
The liberal view of Reed is that he's the Christian right's
zealot in chief, a devil with a cherub's face. This is a misreading. Reed's
Christian faith is undoubtedly sincere, but his real creed is Republican
politics. He's a political junkie who models himself after Lee Atwater. As a
teen-ager, he ran a direct-mail campaign for student council. As an
undergraduate in the early '80s, he became the College Republicans' master
strategist. (According to his pal Grover Norquist, the president of the
anti-tax Americans for Tax Reform, Reed once instructed young Republicans about
the correct way to burn a Soviet flag during a pro-Solidarity protest.) His
tactical ruthlessness has defined the Christian Coalition. "I paint my face and
travel at night," he once said of his work at the coalition. "You don't know
it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night." His
books, Active Faith and After the Revolution , read as much like
primers on power politics as religious-right manifestos. The strategy, not the
scripture, thrills him.
And his
strategy, not his scripture, revived the religious right. In 1989, Robertson
invited Reed to start an organization to expand the grassroots network from
Robertson's 1988 presidential campaign. Reed was an inspired choice: He had
enough principles to win religious conservatives' trust, but not enough to
scare everyone else. Reed recognized that the religious right had staggered in
the mid-'80s because it had 1) depended too much on national leaders and 2)
alienated America with its red-hot rhetoric. To remedy the first problem, Reed
established hundreds of local chapters. Slowly, that network of activists took
over school boards, county commissions, and state political parties.
Reed's more important contribution was to
abandon the clear, if ferocious, principles that defined the '80s Moral
Majority and replace them with a comforting fog of "family values." (Reed
hardly ever calls the movement "religious." He labels it "pro-family"--as if
anyone is "anti-family.") He dumped the "sodomite" rhetoric and distanced
himself from the religious right's loonies (including his own boss, Robertson,
prone to anti-Semitic ravings and one-world-government paranoia). He presented
himself as the religious right's new face--smiling, civil, conciliatory. He
ripped off Newt Gingrich's manifesto idea, preparing a "Contract With the
American Family" whose 10 points were poll-tested to draw 60-percent-plus
approval ratings.
Reed continued to push the
old standbys--defunding the National Endowment for the Arts and stopping gay
marriage. But he added a classic right-wing economic agenda: an endorsement of
free enterprise (God's own economic policy, apparently), opposition to
President Clinton's 1993 stimulus package, and fervent support for tax cuts. He
even tried to quell the GOP's abortion controversy, seeking to moderate (if
only a tiny bit) the language of the 1996 GOP platform. In short, he's
flattened the evangelical crusade of the old religious right into mainstream
conservative politics.
(Reed has
also made overtures toward black churches, home to America's most committed
social conservatives. The coalition raised $750,000 to rebuild burned black
churches and is hosting a conference on racial reconciliation in Baltimore next
week. Reed feels passionately that white evangelicals must atone for their
opposition to the civil-rights movement.)
Reed's political tactics occasionally annoy the ideologues
of the religious right. The Family Research Council's Gary Bauer and Eagle
Forum's Phyllis Schlafly criticized him when he suggested softening the GOP
platform. Some evangelicals view Reed as a compromiser who'll bend a principle
for a tactical victory. Which, of course, he is.
Not that
Christian conservatives have cause to complain. Thanks to Reed, the Christian
Coalition now claims 1.9 million members, 2,000 chapters nationwide, and a $27
million-a-year budget. The 33 million "nonpartisan" voter guides the coalition
distributed in churches before Election Day in 1994 are credited with electing
more than half of the freshman Republicans, securing the GOP's congressional
majority. The coalition distributed 45 million guides in 1996. Christian-right
activists now exercise significant control over 31 state Republican parties;
they are estimated to comprise one-fourth to one-third of the GOP primary vote
and to swing 5-10 points to Republicans in general elections.
Reed's departure will diminish the movement's
influence. The Federal Election Committee investigation of allegations of
partisan campaigning by the coalition endangers its tax-exempt status.
Robertson, who has kept in Reed's shadow, may emerge to embarrass the
coalition. (He's well on his way: The Associated Press reported this week that
two airplanes bought by his "Operation Blessing" to fly aid to impoverished
Zairians were used instead to service Robertson's Zairian diamond mines.) The
Family Research Council's Bauer seems most likely to replace Reed as the
religious right's spokesperson. But he's much less politically savvy, much less
telegenic, and much more ideological--qualities that won't help the movement's
reputation.
Reed, on the other hand,
will see his credibility increase. He no longer has to answer for the erratic
Robertson. He can drop the pretense that he's nonpartisan. He stands to become
the right's hottest consultant, the GOP's answer to James Carville. Republican
consultants agree that conservative candidates in the South, Southwest,
Midwest, and Rocky Mountains will beg for Reed's talents and connections. Reed
will make a killing. He earned about $200,000 from the Christian Coalition. His
future colleagues estimate that as a consultant, he'll earn at least half a
million dollars a year, and perhaps as much as $3 million.
But consulting is a
self-effacing business, and self-effacement is one thing that Ralph Reed has
shown no aptitude for. (He quotes himself in his books, the sure sign of a
towering ego.) He is relocating to his home state of Georgia. He's got plenty
of name recognition. Democratic Sen. Max Cleland barely won his 1996 election.
Don't be surprised if Sen. Reed takes his place in 2002. God knows he's
prepared for it.
