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Ralph Reed's Leadership in the Christian Coalition
Reed grew up in Toccoa, Georgia, and has a B.A. from the University of Georgia and Ph.D. in American History from Emory University. He and his wife Jo Anne have four children and reside in Duluth, Georgia.
Reed grew up in Toccoa, Georgia, and has a B.A. from the University of Georgia and Ph.D. in American History from Emory University. He and his wife Jo Anne have four children and reside in Duluth, Georgia.
Role in the Christian Coalition
Reed’s leadership at the Christian Coalition helped to move religious conservatives into the mainstream and make them one of the most important constituencies in the electorate. Political analysts now agree that the so-called “values voter” among the most critical voting blocs in contemporary American politics. They proved critical to the election of the first Republican Congress in forty years in the1994 landslide and in the victories of President George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.
The strength of religious conservatives was dramatically demonstrated in the Republicans gaining control of Congress in 1994. In that election, Reed’s Christian Coalition turned out a record number of voters. Religious conservatives represented one out of every three voters, and voted roughly three-to-one for GOP candidates.
Standing on a record of intensive grassroots organizing and unprecedented fundraising success, the Christian Coalition gained significant influence within the Republican Party. According to a 1994 Campaigns and Elections magazine, in growing the grassroots of the Christian Coalition, religious conservatives gained a “substantial” or “dominant” role in 31 state Republican Party organizations. Subsequently, Reed used his tenure to achieve issue battle successes at the state level and then projected that grassroots strength to impact legislation in Washington.
But the underpinnings of that 1994 Republican victory had been built over a number of years by Reed and others working in and around the Christian Coalition of America.
“Inspired by union organizers of the past, Reed built a political network that influences candidates at every level. In eight years, the group’s budget has grown from $200,000 to $27 million, and it now boasts 1.9 million members.” Many wondered how did Reed achieved this seemingly overnight success. Simply put he wedded high technology and cutting-edge political organization to engineer the most efficient and effective projection of religion into the nation’s political life in modern times.
Furthermore, “The boyish-looking Reed…has also successfully moved Christian conservatives toward mainstream issues. In his 1993 article, “Casting a Wider Net,” [in the Heritage Foundation’s Policy Review] he warned that the “pro-family movement still has limited appeal even among the 40 million voters who attend church frequently.” To win more elections, he argued, the coalition has to expand its traditional agenda of opposing abortion and gay rights to include calls for tax cuts and smaller government.”
With a Ph.D. in American History from Emory University, Reed built the Christian Coalition movement with an eye toward social reform movements that had gone before him. Reed understood that the long tale of religious involvement in American life should be embraced by all Americans because it had served our country well and unified believers of many denominational stripes. He observed that devout Christians and religious rhetoric had been driving forces behind nearly every social movement in America whether of the right or of the left. From abolition to the New Deal, from the labor movement to civil rights, Christian believers had been instrumental to the expansion of social justice in America. The Christian Coalition sought to stand on those historic movements as it united Catholics, observant Jews, as well as reaching out to African-Americans.
Reed Joined Coalition
USA Weekly reported that Reed “got his chance in January 1989. At a Washington dinner party during George H.W. Bush’s inaugural, he was seated next to Pat Robertson, whom Bush had beaten in the primaries. Robertson, who’d never mounted a real threat but had managed to build strong grassroots organizations in several states, was looking for someone to take it from there.”
Robertson asked Reed to draft a proposal for a grassroots political organization to further the cause of Evangelicals and Roman Catholics. The product of this meeting and plan was the birth of the Christian Coalition which quickly capitalized on Robertson’s campaign and the void left by the closing down of the Moral Majority.
In 1989, Reed was at a crossroads professionally, he had recently finished his doctoral studies in American history at Emory University after serving as the executive director of the College Republican National Committee during the Reagan years. In Reed, Robertson could not have found anyone better suited for the job as Ralph had once said that he wanted to be the “Christian Lee Atwater.” With Robertson’s initial lists and support Reed went on to spend the next eight years as executive director of the Christian Coalition (1989-1997), where he built one of nation's most effective grassroots organizations. The Christian Coalition became “the McDonald’s of conservative activist groups.”
In the midst of all this grassroots success, Reed still managed to author two best selling books, Politically Incorrect and Active Faith.