From: Watch97@aol.com
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 12:38:33 -0400
Subject: Still Painting His face and Traveling at Night

STILL PAINTING HIS FACE AND TRAVELING AT NIGHT, FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
by Paula Xanthopoulou

"We've been in contact with the members of the Christian Coalition that will
be on the platform committee. They've indicated that they will oppose
attaching this language [the "statement of tolerance" proposed by Bob Dole]
to the pro-life plank itself. Given our analysis of the vote count on the
platform committee, I don't even know if this proposal will even get out of
the committee itself...The problem is when you  take that diversity and that
 tolerance and attach it only to the pro-life plank, that makes millions of
Evangelicals and Roman Catholics feel unwelcome. And I don't think that Bob
Dole wants to do that and I don't think the Republican Party wants to do
that." 

That is the world  (for the moment) according to Ralph Reed, Executive
Director of the Christian Coalition --who was responding to Bob Dole's dogged
efforts to open up the Republican Party to diverging views on the issue of
abortion by adding new language to the GOP platform. 

Reed has been making a voracious round of talk/news shows--both promoting his
new book "Active Faith" and pontificating on abortion politics. The above
description of how things are/should be was delivered on NBC's Nightly News
just  last Tuesday. Mr. Reed was speaking not only for his organization, but
more and more on Republican electoral matters. He seems to have an inordinate
amount of interest in GOP politics for someone who is supposed to be
non-partisan! 

Ralph Reed is very smart--managing to conceal his passion for Lee
Atwater-styled politics behind his "choir-boy looks." He has built an aura
around himself based on: 1) being the executive director of an organization
which has co-opted the word Christian; and 2) insisting  that he be called
Dr. Ralph Reed because of his academic degrees. Meanwhile he has positioned
himself as a major player in GOP politics and is clearly backing the
candidacy of Bob Dole.

On last Sunday's Face the Nation, Reed insisted that the GOP is "a pro-life
party"--even when confronted by the latest New York Times/CBS poll (conducted
between May 31 and June 3) which says that "27 percent of Republicans support
keeping the constitutional ban in the platform, while 66 percent oppose it."
Dr. Reed told his audience that the "position of the Party has been
misrepresented in a lot of those questions." He then went on to cite a 1994
Roper poll. Say what?

So Dr. Reed goes--everywhere he can to expound on the aspirations/activities
of "people of faith," the state of the Bob Dole campaign, the most recent
abortion flap, so forth and so on. Very few journalists ask him hard
follow-up questions.  And if anything doesn't come out quite right in the
media, the record shows that he'll just deny he ever meant it or said it
anyway. Just ask The New York Times.

Most disturbing of all is the way that Dr. Reed downplays or denies what his
boss Pat Robertson--the Founder and President of the Christian
Coalition--believes and says on The 700 Club. Last week on National Public
Radio's "Diane Rehm" show, Reed responded to questions about Robertson's
intolerant comments with non-answers--that he'd never heard the quote before;
or the quote may have been taken out of context ; or that he'd have to ask
Pat what he meant. Nonetheless, the pious nature of Reed's book/comments
stands in stark contrast to the divisive and dangerous agenda laid out by
Robertson every weekday at 10 AM on the Family Channel.

It's these kinds of  intolerant, partisan and elusive statements that make so
many Americans wary of  Dr. Ralph Reed--despite his political and publishing
celebrity. Reed is brilliant when it comes to adjusting to the political
issue of the moment or staying on message come hell or high-water. But at the
end of the day, he is still the same old Ralph Reed.

He is still the same political operative who said: "I want to be invisible. I
paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a
body bag. You don't know until election night."

That would be November 5th.

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