<h1 class="piece">Religious Right's Ralph Reed a Big Election Loser</h1>
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<div class="byline">By <a href="http://www.opposingviews.com/users/auscs" title="View user profile.">AUSCS</a>, Fri, November 09, 2012</div>
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<p>Ralph Reed's evangelical army was missing in action in key battleground states.
</p><p>Like a lot of you, I got way too many political calls in the lead-up to the election. In fact, I stopped answering the phone.</p>
<p>I made an exception just days before Nov. 6 when my caller I.D.
announced that Ralph Reed was calling. Reed, former executive director
of the Christian Coalition and now head of the Faith & Freedom
Coalition (FFC), is a longtime Religious Right hack, and I wanted to
hear his spiel. I raced to the phone. (In case you’re wondering, <a href="http://www.au.org/church-state/julyaugust-2011-church-state/featured/ralph-reed-born-again">I have attended</a> FFC conferences in the past, and that’s why I’m on Reed’s call list.)</p>
<p>Unfortunately, all I heard when I picked up was a woman’s voice ask, “Is this Mr. Boston?” before the line went dead.</p>
<p>The next evening, Reed tried once more. And again I jumped up from
the couch (sending an alarmed cat scurrying upstairs) and grabbed the
phone before the second ring. This time, I didn’t even hear a voice,
just a dial tone.</p>
<p>If this was an example of Reed’s much-vaunted voter outreach, it leaves something to be desired.</p>
<p>The fact is, Reed had a bad night Nov. 6. Months prior to the
election, he bragged about his plans to distribute 25 million voter
guides and reach out to more than 100,000 churches. An army of
right-wing evangelicals, he said, would march into the nation’s voting
booths and propel Mitt Romney to the White House.</p>
<p>Sorry, Ralph, but it appears your army went missing in action.</p>
<p>Conservative columnist Steve Deace says Religious Right evangelical
turnout actually dropped in two key states – Virginia and Florida.</p>
<p>“The exit polls also said white evangelical turnout in Virginia was
down 7% from 2008, and Romney did not improve evangelical turnout in
Florida from four years ago while losing about 40,000 to libertarian
Gary Johnson,” <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2012/11/07/republicans-lost-election-gop-future/1689255/">wrote Deace</a>.</p>
<p><em>Christianity Today</em> <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/november-web-only/in-defeats-evangelicals-more-politically-united-than-ever-b.html">reported</a>
that evangelical support for the GOP ticket also dropped in Ohio, the
mother of all battleground states. It was only a 3-point drop, but in a
tight race that might have made a difference.</p>
<p>“In Ohio, Romney had a more difficult time convincing evangelicals to
support him,” reported the magazine. “In 2008, McCain received 71
percent of evangelical votes in Ohio. Exit polls this year don’t show
much change, with 68 percent of evangelicals voting for the Republican
ticket.”</p>
<p>Just to be clear, Romney got a lot of support from white evangelicals
on Tuesday. Something like 78 percent backed him. But Reed didn’t
promise to merely help Romney maintain the status quo. He bragged about a
dramatic influx of new voters and an aggressive get-out-the-vote
strategy to boost Romney’s numbers.</p>
<p>Didn’t happen. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/politics/why-romney-lost/index.html?hpt=hp_t1_5">As CNN reported</a>,
the Republicans’ ground game was, well, not on the ground and not much
of a game. Ralph reportedly got $10 million from right-wing fat cats to
turn out the vote for Romney. I wonder if they’ll ask for a refund?</p>
<p>Reed did enlist a few right-wing heavy hitters to make <a href="http://blogs.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/archive/2012/11/05/only-on-the-brody-file-sarah-palins-last-second-audio-again.aspx">robocalls for him</a>. Among them were Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, former Sen. Rick Santorum and that towering Christian leader Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Reed even reportedly persuaded Focus on the Family founder James
Dobson to do a robocall. Dobson must have a short memory because the
last time he worked with Reed, he ended up being duped into backhandedly
<a href="http://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/million-dollar-baby-ralph-reed-recruited-dobson-into-high-stakes-casino">aiding casino interests</a> during the infamous Jack Abramoff scandal. (Reed was in that thing <a href="http://www.au.org/church-state/march-2006-church-state/featured/wheel-of-misfortune">up to his neck</a> but escaped serious scrutiny.)</p>
<p>But here’s the thing: In ReedWorld, you never have to say you’re
sorry. The day after the election, Reed appeared at a press conference
in Washington, D.C., to insist that he had done his job.</p>
<p>“We can’t do the Republican Party’s job for them,” <a href="http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/11/08/15025030-ralph-reed-feels-a-little-defensive?lite">a testy Reed said</a>. “We can’t do the candidates’ job for them.” He blamed the poor GOP showing on “candidate performance issues.”</p>
<p>What about the millions of phone calls Reed promised to make? What
about his vow to implement the most technologically sophisticated voter
ID and outreach effort the conservative world had ever seen? (Reed told <em>The New York Times</em> in September that his group <a href="http://au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/murky-math-why-ralph-reed-s-latest-political-claims-don-t-add-up">would call</a>
17.1 million registered voters in 15 key states and that two million
people would receive personal visits.) What about his scheme to flood
the nation with slanted voter guides?</p>
<p>Reed insists he did all of that stuff. Two hang-up calls later have left me skeptical.</p>
<p>The sad thing is, I suspect Reed doesn’t really care if his outreach
wasn’t all it was cranked up to be. After all, he still got paid. And
for Ralph, that’s the bottom line in more ways than one.</p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br><br><img src="http://users.moscow.com/waf/WP%20Fox%2001.jpg"><br>
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