Subject: 3 -- THEY SADDLED US WITH "VOTER GUIDE SUNDAY"
From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 1996 00:02:56 -0500

ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE, THEY SADDLED US WITH "VOTER GUIDE SUNDAY"
by Paula Xanthopoulou

Today was Christian Coalition "Voter Guide Sunday" -- definitely a sign of
the times.

This used to simply be the Sunday before Election day, when people (even some
candidates!) would take a breather from electioneering -- save those who
might leave flyers on car windshields in shopping mall parking lots or maybe
leaflet the neighborhood. Many people went to church, mostly to forsake the
earthly for the spiritual.

Not any more. 

Pat Robertson -- ostensibly a man of God -- and his Christian Coalition have
over a period of just a few years managed to convert the Sunday before
election day into one of the most political and less Godly days of all.  It's
the apex of the Christian Coalition effort to provide well-meaning people of
faith with "voter guides" that have proven time and time again to be anything
but non-partisan. The majority of millions of the pro-GOP propaganda sheets
were distributed today, at the eleventh hour and mostly in churches -- on
pews, on literature tables, or even with the church bulletin. Praise the
Lord?

Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed testified loud and clear to
the intent of the Christian Coalition effort in Cincinnati last Wednesday
when he said, as reported by the Associated Press, "Newt Gingrich will still
be speaker of the house on January 5, 1997." He also said, "Believe me, when
you've got 100,000 volunteers and 125,000 churches and 45 million copies of
anything, you've got  a lot of activity going on."

But why should we believe Mr. Reed, especially his numbers? He has been less
than honest on so many other occasions, almost never offering documentation
of his claims. And does the mere existence -- if they do exist -- of 45
million pieces of paper a successful political effort make?

For many weeks there have been indications that all is not well in Christian
Coalition Land. When the Federal Election Commission filed suit in July
against the Robertson political operation because of partisan activity, the
Coalition called it a "frivolous" lawsuit by a "reckless government agency."
Yet court documents show that this is serious business. The Coalition has
been forced to do damage control, trying to convince people otherwise.

This year, unlike 1994, the Christian Coalition "voter guide" effort has not
only been challenged but highly scrutinized in advance -- so that candidates
misrepresented by them could have some time to react. Coalition efforts to
keep their propaganda under wraps until today have been scuttled by the
growing number of watchdog/public interest groups that make it their business
to expose people and political operations like Pat Robertson and the
Christian Coalition. People for the American Way (PFAW), for example, offered
a detailed report on its website plus access to hardcopies of many of the
voter guides collected by resourceful contacts/volunteers -- who knew that
they could probably find the materials at their local evangelical churches
ready to be unleashed today. (At a North Miami Baptist church you could not
get the Christian Coalition "voter guide" up front because "churches are
afraid to do anything like that anymore." But if you asked around, someone
would get you one from their car.)

And that's not all.

Stories have begun to surface confirming the worst of the Christian
Coalition's troubles this time around:  deep dissatisfaction in the grass
roots with the group's all too obvious association with a presidential
candidate who they can't relate to on social issues _and_  who is also about
to lose the election -- gaining them nothing in the end. That dynamic flew in
the face of Pat Robertson & Company last Monday when a key US Taxpayers Party
volunteer based in Alabama ripped the Coalition's so-called  "voter guides"
in a letter/analysis circulated widely on the Internet. Linda Muller's
message bore the title "'96 CC Guide Perverts Info for Christian Voters." An
ensuing posting from another Alabaman and former Christian Coalition leader
informed her that 30,000 "voter guides" were about to be thrown into local
dumpster. We will undoubtedly find out that this was no isolated incident.

Yesterday's Washington Post reported that Christian Coalition "voter guides"
were being delivered indiscriminately to churches that did not ask for them
-- creating even more discontent. Is this the height of arrogance by Mr.
Reed's 100,000 volunteers or just plain desperation on the part of people who
got stuck delivering unwanted paper?

Furthermore, faith-based groups and their affiliates have been springing up
around the country to challenge the Christian Coalition's efforts to co-opt
Christians. The Interfaith Alliance even went so far as to issue its own
non-partisan and highly public voter guides in a number of Congressional
districts.

Ralph Reed's answer to this remarkable turn of events is to continue to talk
up Coalition activity as if  things are better instead of worse, and then go
on the attack. It's called Spin Kontrol. Somehow, voter guides issued by
unions at whatever cost are supposed to be on par with using churches and
well-meaning Christians as a front for rightwing political activity on behalf
of the Republican Party. Does anybody really believe that?

In an interview published Thursday in USAToday he said this about efforts by
Americans United For Separation of Church and State and PFAW to advise
churches with well-documented information that handing the Coalition's
partisan materials would jeopardize their tax-exempt status: "They have, in
fact, lied...That is false. The IRS has already ruled -- in a private
opinion, not a public one -- that our voter guides are in full compliance."
Where, in God's name, is Reed's proof !

Reed's allegations were conveniently mirrored by the North Carolina
Republican Party -- which on Friday issued a press release which said in
part: "A liberal activist group [Americans United], with strong connections
to the American Civil Liberties Union and the Democratic Party has begun
mailing letters to churches in North Carolina threatening them with
prosecution if Christian Coalition voter guides are discussed or disseminated
this week." 

There is definitely trouble in Christian Coalition Land, no matter how things
turn out on Tuesday.
And whatever the result, you can count on Ralph Reed to distance himself as
much as possible from anything spelled L-O-S-E-R. He will throw numbers and
percentages around like crazy trying to make him and the Christian Coalition
the W-I-N-N-E-R.  It will be all about creating an illusion of political
power -- when in reality Conservative Republicans who may win election or
re-election will do because of a variety of factors, and even in spite of
miscalculations by the Christian Coalition.

But before we get to the post-election Spin Kontrol, there are serious
questions. What about Mr. Reed's well-documented knack for misleading the
public --like his penchant for using numbers that don't add up regarding
membership rolls? And what about the mainstream media's equally disturbing
habit of giving Mr. Reed a free ride when he does things like that? If Ralph
Reed says he somehow represents evangelical Christians, Roman Catholics and
Greek Orthodox -- it must be true, not a  game of mirrors.

Enough already! It's time to stop giving  Ralph Reed and by extension Pat
Robertson a free ride just because they'll scream "religious bigotry!" if we
ask too many questions about bald-face political maneuverings. Each and every
opportunistic claim by Ralph Reed in coming days about what the Christian
Coalition has done or not done should be countered with one question:
"Where's the proof?"

The Christian Coalition has already done enough damage to our political
process and to churches/people of faith everywhere -- by becoming a
hypocritical extension of the Republican Party and selling out any real
beliefs for the proverbial thirty pieces of silver.  These are criticisms
that the far reaches of the left-wing and right-wing actually now agree upon.
 The media and the general public should also now consider the possibility
that it is the Christian Coalition that is the problem, not questions about
the Christian Coalition. And those questions must be asked.

Pat Robertson & Company did not, as promised, lessen the "coarsening of the
culture" by practicing politics on some higher level.  And on top of
everything else, they saddled us with Christian Coalition "Voter Guide
Sunday."
_______________________________________________

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