From: LaJfA@aol.com
Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 01:41:12 -0400
Subject: special from c.c.watch

DIRECT FROM WASHINGTON

To:  The c.c.watch Internet Network
Subject: Report from the CC Road to Victory Conference 
Date: September 8, 1995

The big news in Washington today is the resignation of Bob Packwood and its
political ramifications for Senate leadership. But Washington is bubbling
with political energy. The President is back in town, Congress is back in
session...and the Christian Coalition is shifting into high gear.

Tomorrow marks the first day of the 2-day, fifth annual CC "Road to Victory"
conference being held at the Washington Hilton. Delegates and leadership have
been busy registering and networking all afternoon and evening. State
chairpeople, etc. have been doing their requisite (and probably very closed)
pre-meetings. Some members spent the afternoon lobbying their representatives
on Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile those for and against are jockeying for position. The list of
speakers paying homage to Pat Robertson & Co is mind-numbing in length and
rank--from Newt Gingrich and Phil Gram to Oliver North and Robert Bork. Bob
Dole will hold a special reception for delegates tomorrow evening.

Arlen Specter was the only GOP candidate not invited, creating a flurry of
public pronouncements. He wanted to know why he was excluded: "You must [he
wrote to Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed] be afraid of my ideas--ideas which
will prevail in an open political process with lusty debate." Mr. Reed
admitted today on CNN's "Inside Politics" that it was because Senator Specter
had said a lot of things about the CC membership and leadership that were
"unfair." The Senator refused the CC "olive branch" to speak to the state
leaders, saying he deserved to speak to the whole group like everyone else;
he will hold a press conference at the Jefferson Memorial tomorrow.

(Late this afternoon the Simon Weisenthal Center addressed a letter to Ralph
Reed saying that it had received numerous complaints from its constituents
about the exclusion of Senator Specter. Was it because he is not of the
Christian faith?)

On Saturday, the Interfaith Alliance and Americans United will hold a press
conference at a church across from the hotel to release a report assailing
the efforts of the CC to control powerful Republican politicians and the GOP
itself. 
	 
Ralph Reed has promised that the conference will not just be a dog and pony
show. Indeed the agenda is jam-packed...including a session on the new,
wholly-owned subsidiary of the CC, the Catholic Alliance--a development first
reported in the Miami Herald on August 27th.

Here we go....

Copyright 1995 Public-Spirited Enterprises
("c.c.watch" is an independent newsletter which monitors the Christian
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