The LA Times ran an item recently about how thrilled the religious right was with the GOP convention. No big surprise there; the movement got virtually everything it wanted. But one part of the report jumped out as almost certainly wrong.
[C]onservative activists have a number of plans for getting out Bush’s message as Nov. 2 draws nearer. After distributing 70 million printed voter guides through church circulars in 2000, the Christian Coalition of America plans this year to use a similar approach.
This time, however, the organization is likely to print about half as many guides and target them more precisely, into about 17 of the most closely contested states. The coalition has preliminary plans to increase its wallop in those states by distributing the guides not just in churches but in shopping malls and other public places where undecided voters might be found, said William F. Thomson, the organization’s national field director.
The likelihood that the Christian Coalition has the staff, resources, and field operation necessary to distribute 35 million campaign flyers in 17 battleground states is virtually zero. The group wants desperately to be taken seriously as an important campaign player, but it’s just a paper tiger.
Even the Coalition’s presence at the convention itself was something of a joke. Four years ago, in Philadelphia, the CC was still a convention force, hosting well-attended training sessions and receiving plenty of attention from candidates who wanted to curry favor with the group’s leaders and members. This year, next to nothing.
Coalition spokeswoman Michelle Ammons said the group is comfortable with an understated role at the convention. The Coalition…has “for security reasons” nixed a plan to bring to bring in 50 or 60 busloads of Christians for a rally, Ammons said.
Hmm, several other major organizations had little trouble brining their supporters to the convention and maintaining a high profile. Apparently, “security reasons” is the new euphemism for “we couldn’t find anyone interested in our efforts.”
But convention presence aside, there are other reasons to believe the Christian Coalition is bearing false witness about it’s plan for the upcoming election season — specifically, it’s lied about this before.
According to reports from earlier this year, the group plans to spend $4.2 million on this year’s campaign activities. (The Coalition still claims tax-exempt status, so its campaign efforts, which have been narrowed to exclusively cater to voters in battleground states, are called “non-partisan.” Yeah, of course they are.)
One of the problems is that the Coalition doesn’t really have $4.2 million, it’s already having trouble paying its existing bills, and so it seems highly unlikely the group can spend that much to help Bush.
Another problem is the group has never met its goals for distributing these so-called voter guides. As the group’s budget and staff dwindled throughout the ’90s, the Coalition found it simply couldn’t afford to meet its own target goals for distribution. In 1998, the group bragged to the press about having distributed more than 40 million voter guides. A former staffer later told the New York Times it was all a lie. “We never distributed 40 million guides,” Dave Welch, the coalition’s former national field director, admitted.
And they won’t this year, either. I know the Christian Coalition is struggling for relevancy, but its day has come and gone. The group just isn’t scary anymore.