Faith and Freedom Coalition

Rick Santorum, ousted from the U.S. Senate by Pennsylvania voters in 2006, has been busy denouncing “islamofascism” from his perch at the right-wing Ethics and Public Policy Center. Now he seems to be plotting a run for the presidency. Santorum, a Catholic, is pushing himself into the public eye with an attack on John F. Kennedy and one of that president’s most famous speeches, in which the nation’s only Catholic president told a gathering of Protestant ministers in Houston that he believed in the separation of church and state.

Ralph Reed may have seen his political aspirations go up in flames thanks to his years of exploiting his Religious Right cronies for the benefit of corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff but, as we noted last week, that hasn't stopped a slew of right-wing leaders from signing on to participate in his upcoming Faith and Freedom Conference.

And Reed, whose ego and penchant for hyperbole have been the one constant throughout his career, is here to tell you, the ACLJ's Jordan Sekulow, and anyone who will listen that they had better plan on attending his awesome conference because it is not only going to change America, but it will change the lives of all those in attendance:

As you know, I was at the Christian Coalition in the 90s and I worked on the Bush campaign in 2000 and '04 and I decided to take that knowledge and that experience and, for lack of a better term, create a 21st Century Christian Coalition meets MoveOn.org with a smattering of the NRA.

So the Faith and Freedom Coalition is a grassroots permanent public policy organization that combines pro-family activists with what we might call the Tea Party activists uniting on the economic agenda as well as the pro-family agenda. We now have 400,000 people involved in the organization; we have state organizations in 23 states and as you mentioned, we're having our meeting, national gathering in DC September 10-11.

We're going to have over 60 of the leading conservative and pro-family activist leaders and organizers in the nation and I urge you to be here. It's going to change the life of our nation and it will change your life if you are able to be there. 

Why is it that when Ralph Reed is involved, nothing can ever just be what it is? 

For instance, his new Faith and Freedom Coalition is not just a new Religious Right group, but rather the "Christian Coalition on Steroids."

And Reed is not just another Religious Right operative, but the Religious Right's Steve Jobs.

And Reed's works is not just standard voter mobilization, but rather guerilla warfare and saturation bombing.

And so, of course, his upcoming Faith and Freedom Coalition Summit is not just a political conference, but "the political equivalent of NFL minicamp":

The Faith & Freedom Coalition will hold its first national Conference and Strategy Briefing with top grassroots leaders, pastors, and activists in Washington, DC, on September 9-11. The Faith & Freedom Coalition, founded by Ralph Reed, will inform and train its state and chapter leaders, activists, and supporters in preparation for the 2010 elections.

To date confirmed speakers include former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former White House senior advisor and Fox News contributor Karl Rove, Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia, former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie, Congressmen Randy Forbes, Tom Price, and Lynn Westmoreland, among many others.

Hundreds of grassroots activists will gather for training, workshops and breakout sessions on voter registration, Get-Out-the-Vote tactics, and how to utilize Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites to build a volunteer network. Among scheduled panels: "Mama Grizzly" candidates who are making 2010 the "Year of the Conservative Woman," and leading Tea Party organizers, including Jenny Beth Martin with Tea Party Patriots.

"This is not just a conference or a retreat," said Ralph Reed. "This is the political equivalent of NFL minicamp. We will train and equip our activists on how to block and tackle in the churches and precincts as we prepare for the most important election of our lifetimes."

It was just yesterday that I wrote a post about Mike Huckabee's ties to James Robison, a now rather obscure figure who, back in the 1980s, was a powerful Religious Right leader. 

In that post, I noted that Robison was still active and had recently had Jim Garlow on his program. Shortly after that post went up, some glitch on Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition website caused an old post to show up in my RSS reader and lo and behold it was video from last year of Reed appearing on Robison's show to pitch the need for his new organization on the grounds that "democracy doesn't really work at all unless there's a citizenry animated by a moral code that derives from their faith in God."

For his part, Robison stated his conviction that the Constitution was written so as to be in "harmony with Biblical truth" and Judeo-Christian ethic, while warning that the country was "racing toward Marxism" and complaining that "the most discriminated against people on the planet are Christians today."

The clip below is the second part of the interview - you can see Part I here:

I realize that I can't declare that James Robison is attempting making a return to prominence among the Religious Right based on three pretty random appearances by him on this blog in the last week ... but it is still kind of odd that I'm mentioning him for the third time in one week after having written about him only one time in the last four years. 

• The Illinois Family Institute "needs to raise $80,000 to survive the summer."
• Rep. Michele Bachmann received the 2010 Conservative Leadership Award from the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute.
• An interesting look at the ties between Jay Sekulow, Deacon Keith Fournier, Rob and Paul Schenck, and the American Center for Law and Justice.
• Maggie Gallagher is not happy with the way the Prop 8 trial appears to be going.
• Janne Myrdal, State Director for CWA of North Dakota, is honored to be "one of those prayer warriors who provide [Sarah Palin's] prayer shield."
• Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition is busy training "Tea Partiers, home schoolers and other conservatives to give them the tools they need to turn out the identify, educate and turn out conservative voters in their area."
• Sadly, Pat Robertson is refusing to make a comment on the large statue of Jesus that was struck by lightening and destroyed. 

No good can possibly come of this:

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and Ralph Reed

Religion Dispatches' Sarah Posner has a really good article on Ralph Reed and his miraculous resurrection through his Faith and Freedom Coalition which contains a lot of useful information, a lot of which I was totally unaware of, like the fact that Tim Phillips, which whom Reed c0-founded Century Strategies after leaving the Christian Coalition, is now the president of Tea Party activist firm Americans for Prosperity and that Reed's new organization is apparently cannibalizing his previous organization to create his new organization:

Reed’s FFC is essentially a retread of the Christian Coalition which, under Reed’s leadership, was investigated by Congress, the Federal Election Commission, and ultimately (after Reed’s departure) had its tax-exempt status denied over its engagement in electoral politicking. But Reed, who has managed to survive the Christian Coalition meltdown, his two-timing of evangelicals through his business association with Abramoff, and his 2006 loss in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor of Georgia, is sifting the remnants of the Christian Coalition infrastructure to build FFC.

O'Neal Dozier, pastor of the Worldwide Christian Church in Pompano Beach, Florida, and a Christian Coalition of Florida board member, said that the board voted last year to “come under the umbrella of” the FFC. For an organization that was low on funds, said Dozier, it was “a great opportunity that we felt we couldn’t pass up.”

Now Dozier also serves on the FFC board, and says that the affiliation brings “more fundraising capabilities. With Faith and Freedom and with Ralph being known as he is, we can get more conservatives involved and coming to functions that we have in order to raise funds,” both locally and nationally. “It costs a lot of money to print voter guides,” he chuckled.

Also rather amazing is the fact that nobody in the movement is particularly concerned about Reed's Jack Abramoff-related double-dealings:

Yet Reed continues to elicit effusive praise from fellow evangelicals. The Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody claims FFC “is indeed poised to be a major player in the 2010 and 2012 elections.” About Reed’s association with Abramoff, [Iowa Christian Alliance president Steve] Scheffler told RD, “if you look at the whole explanation it was a nonissue, it was the press that made something out of nothing that was there.” He added that Iowa activists were “excited” that Reed was the master of ceremonies for the Iowa Christian Alliance’s fundraiser this week, at which Rick Santorum was the keynote speaker.

Cindy Costa, the Republican National Committeewoman for South Carolina and former Christian Coalition activist, told RD that Reed is a “fine gentleman” and “helpful to the conservative movement.” After an FFC organizing event in Tennessee last week, Richard Land, head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, called the FFC “one of the most important forces for sound public policy in America in the coming years.” And GOP operative Chip Saltsman, forced to pull out of the race for Republican National Committee chair last year after he distributed a “Barack the Magic Negro” CD, added that FFC “has already been effective in identifying and turning out conservative voters and we’re pleased to bring it to Tennessee.”

But rest assured that even though Reed might be seeking to tie his current activism to the Tea Party movement, he isn't abandoning his Religious Right foundation:

Reed went on to claim that not running the country on a Judeo-Christian moral code is actually contrary to democracy. “So really, when you really get right down to it, James,” he said, “democracy doesn’t really work at all unless there is a citizenry animated by a moral code that derives from their faith in God. That’s what makes the whole thing work because otherwise, the government has to tell everybody what to do.”

I encourage you to read the whole thing.

It looks like Ralph Reed has decided not to run for Congress in order to focus on growing the influence of this Faith and Freedom Coalition:

Dear Friend:

I wanted you to be among the first to know of my decision regarding running for Congress in the Seventh District of Georgia. The following statement will be released to the public shortly but I wanted you to have it first:

"After much thought and prayer, I have decided not to be a candidate for Congress in Georgia's Seventh district in 2010. I believe I can best advance conservative principles by continuing to serve as CEO of Century Strategies, LLC, and founding chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. Century's voter contact subsidiary and grassroots team will be involved in a number of races in 2010. FFC is growing rapidly, with over 150,000 members and supporters already, currently adding one new state chapter a week and 1,000 new members a day.

In 2010 and 2012, FFC will register an estimated one million new faith-based voters and make tens of millions of voter contacts in what may be the largest conservative get-out-the-vote effort in modern political history. These nationwide efforts offer a much better prospect for changing the direction of the country than winning a Congressional race myself. In the end, I concluded I cannot run for Congress and carry out the plans I have for Century Strategies and Faith and Freedom Coalition at the same time. I had to make a choice. I believe electing 50 to 100 men and women of character and conservative beliefs to Congress and statewide office over the next two election cycles is a more efficacious way to advance the conservative agenda than seeking public office myself in 2010.

Should that door open in the future, perhaps I will arrive at a different decision, but I know this is the right decision at this time for me and the Reed family. Jo Anne and I have been deeply moved and encouraged by the expressions of support we have received from so many. We are proud to call Georgia our home and we look forward to continuing to be involved in the civic life of our state and the nation. God bless you as we work together for an historic victory in 2010."

Actually, it seemed pretty clear that Reed was going to pass on running for office after he showed up in Iowa yesterday and vowed that, with a half-million dollars, his Faith and Freedom Coalition would help conservatives completely take over the state:

Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition and a veteran Republican strategist, told a Des Moines crowd Tuesday night that he was helping establish an Iowa-based Christian political organization, and if he could raise $500,000, Hawkeye State politics would be changed for the better.

With that money, Reed said his organization — the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition — can promise results like the nation saw in the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the U.S. Senate campaign in Massachusetts. Reed said the national version of his organization was highly involved in those campaigns, each of which saw Republican victories on Election Night.

“We need to raise about a half a million dollars to execute that program,” he said. “The program that I just described to you that made history in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, if you want to see it happen in Iowa we need to raise a half a million dollars.”

Reed, who was speaking at an Iowa Christian Alliance event, then instructed staff to pass buckets around for people to donate money, promising that any funds raised Tuesday night will be matched by his national organization.

“Tonight, when you give, we’re not a PAC and we’re not a candidate,” he said. “Therefore, there is no limit to what you give here tonight.”

...

“We’re not going to leave the express advocacy during an election to the radical left, MoveOn.org and labor unions anymore,” he said. “We’re going to do it, and we’re going to get people who share our values elected to office, from governor all the way down to the statehouse and school boards all across the state of Iowa.”

When I saw reports last week that Rep. John Linder had announced his retirement that listed Ralph Reed as among those who might be potentially considering running to fill his seat, I dismissed them as fundamentally absurd.  

And, of course, every time I do that, I turn out to be wrong, as David Brody reports:

Sources close to Ralph Reed tell The Brody File that the former Executive Director of the Christian Coalition is “seriously” considering running for Congress in Georgia. According to one well-placed source, Reed has talked to key grassroots leaders and local elected officials in Gwinnett county and other parts of the district, but has not made a decision yet.

18 year veteran Congressman Rep. John Linder announced over the weekend that he's retiring. This seat is in a big time Republican district in the Atlanta suburbs. Reed would be positioned well.

It'll be interesting to see what Reed does. His grassroots Faith and Freedom Coalition is taking off but it's kind of hard to pass up this opportunity considering openings like this don't happen often.

Back in 2006, Reed lost his bid to win the GOP primary for Lieutenant Governor thanks to his deep ties to Jack Abramoff's corruption [PDF]. But apparently, he's convinced himself that voters have either forgotten about that or forgiven him for it ... at least enough "seriously" consider making another run for public office.