ATLANTA - Democrats snickered and even some Republicans scowled when the Georgia GOP, still trying to broaden its mainstream appeal, elected Ralph Reed as its new state party chairman last year.
As the former frontman for Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition, Reed had a right-wing reputation that threatened to sink state Republicans trying to avoid extremist labels. And his recent history included work on several losing campaigns, including Alabama Gov. Fob James re-election bid and Mitch Skandalakis' landslide loss in Georgia lieutenant governor's race.
Those campaigns four years ago only reinforced Reed's firebrand reputation, especially a Skandalakis commercial that implied his opponent had a drug problem.
But a quieter, more low-key Reed helped Republicans take a historic sweep of Georgia elections Tuesday, including the first GOP governor since Reconstruction. The victories catapulted Reed to his greatest success outside of the religious right and helped the GOP complete a Southern takeover that began in the 1960s.
``It took a lot of discipline to stay out of the limelight and not become an issue himself over the last couple of years,'' said Chuck Clay, Georgia's Republican chairman before Reed. ``A lot of Democrats chortled when he became chairman and said, `He's going to be the issue.' Well, he shut that up.''
While he kept in the background during the campaign, Reed has since emerged as the party's chief spokesman to explain how Republicans rolled over an incumbent governor and U.S. senator, won two congressional districts drawn for Democrats and knocked off key Democratic leaders in the state Legislature.
But the 41-year-old, still baby-faced Reed refuses to take too much credit.
``Guys like me look real good when you have a great candidate,'' Reed says before heaping praise on Gov.-elect Sonny Perdue, Sen.-elect Saxby Chambliss and President Bush. ``What I'm trying to do is underscore that this was not about any one person. This was a team effort.''
Still, political analysts are calling Reed one of the year's big election winners along with Bush adviser Karl Rove. Some say Reed appears to be grooming himself as a future candidate, though he won't discuss such ambitions.
``This is going to be huge for him,'' said Merle Black, an Emory University professor who specializes in Southern politics. ``He's going to appear as one of the important architects of this Republican victory in Georgia. Republicans all over the country are going to want to know how he did this.''
Even some Democrats were praising Reed.
``Ralph Reed did one of the best jobs I think has ever been done in leading his party to victory,'' said Sen. Zell Miller. ``He is a force to be reckoned with.''
Reed returned to Georgia, where he attended high school and college, in 1997 to open a political consulting firm after spending eight years as director of the Christian Coalition.
As the coalition's media-savvy frontman, Reed became the voice of the Christian-conservative resurgence that crested in 1994 when Republicans led by Newt Gingrich seized control of Congress for the first time in 40 years.
The coalition grew from the scraps of Pat Robertson's 1988 presidential campaign into a leading force in pressuring the Republican Party to maintain its opposition to abortion and to promote legislation allowing prayer in public schools. It also was a leading backer of legislation allowing states to refuse to recognize gay marriages.
During Reed's tenure, the Christian Coalition's budget grew from $200,000 to $27 million and help put members in local, county and state offices.
But the Ralph Reed who warned Republicans in 1996 ``you had better not retreat from the pro-life and pro-family stance that made you a majority party'' has spent the last four years retooling his image.
His role as an adviser to Bush's presidential campaign two years ago earned him mainstream credibility. This year, Reed joined GOP candidates in touting kitchen-table issues such as eliminating seniors' income taxes and raising students' SAT scores rather than abortion and school prayer.
``He's singing a different tune now,'' said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. ``Ralph is a very ambitious fellow and he very much wants to shed the image of being on the far-right. He would like to be seen as a mainstream conservative Republican so he can run.''
Reed says he has not abandoned his religious and moral views, but his new job requires him to speak for the entire spectrum of Republicans.
``I'm a person of deep, personal faith and my faith is the most important thing in my life,'' Reed said. ``I believe you win campaigns by talking about the issues voters care about. This year we really talked a lot about education reform, creating jobs and improving traffic congestion.''
Reed's pragmatic shift doesn't mean he turned his back on the religious right, said Caryl Swift, president of Georgia Right to Life.
``Of course we would like to see more, but he hasn't been ineffective on the issue,'' Swift said. ``There is some bridge building we need to do with those who still have reservations on the life issue, and he can be instrumental in helping us.''
Reed insists he's never viewed himself as anything other than a ``loyal and hardworking mainstream Republican.'' And he says many people don't know that, before heading the Christian Coalition, he had worked on Republican campaigns since 1978.
That was the year when a 17-year-old Reed phoned the Georgia Republican headquarters and requested a stack of campaign literature so he could pass out pamphlets at his high school in rural Stephens County.
``I don't know if they'd ever gotten a call from Stephens County before,'' Reed said. ``I went to my first Republican county convention in 1980 and there were nine people there. There really was no Republican Party in that part of the state.''
Perdue and Chambliss both won about 58 percent of the vote in Stephens County this year.
``To see what has happened in the intervening 22 years is amazing,'' Reed said. ``I think we're all tired. But it's a euphoric exhaustion.''
Tuesday
May 13th, 2025
12:50AM
