NYTimes: A Political Revival for Ralph Reed
By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: June 01, 2011
LADY LAKE, Fla. – Ralph Reed turns 50 this month, but as he roused a crowd of retirees here with talk of restoring Christian values and bringing down President Obama, he still looked like the boy wonder who appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1995, named “The Right Hand of God” for building the Christian Coalition into an electoral juggernaut.
The standing ovation the other day at a meeting of the Tri-County Tea Party in central Florida was just one sign that Mr. Reed, who has formed a new group with national aspirations called the Faith and Freedom Coalition, is escaping the political purgatory that even many Republicans had predicted and may be gaining some traction as he seeks to emerge as a player in the 2012 campaign.
IN 2006, in his first bid for elective office, Mr. Reed suffered a humiliating loss in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor of Georgia, dogged by embarrassing revelations about his close business ties to Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who went to prison for influence peddling and defrauding Indian tribes.
But the ensuing five years have been a political eternity, with the election of Mr. Obama, the rise of the Tea Party and last year’s conservative victories that have whetted Republican appetites for more. In that time the public-relations savvy Mr. Reed, who once said a factor in his decision to locate his consulting firm in Atlanta was that the city was the headquarters of CNN, has kept an unusually low profile.
Hardly bashful these days, Mr. Reed suggests that his party needs him. He said that “a couple good friends, fairly senior in the party” told him, “You need to do something.” They said, “Since you left the Christian Coalition, we haven’t had a lean, mean operation focused on the grass roots.”
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