Usually, ambitious people with a record of ethical lapses run for office and then get mired in a scandal. Ralph Reed’s vision for his career, much like his approach to politics, is backwards — scandal first, campaign second.
As readers may recall, the former Christian Coalition director, who once called gambling “a cancer on the American body politic” that was “stealing food from the mouths of children,” recently got caught up in a federal criminal investigation into lobbying abuses connected to gambling on Indian reservations. As The Nation reported, Reed was paid with funds laundered through two firms to try to keep his lucrative involvement secret.
It’s quite a sordid tale. The federal investigation has been underway into the activities of GOP lawyer/lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Mike Scanlon, Tom DeLay’s former spokesman and head of two campaign and public relations companies. With their help, Reed went to great strides to keep himself out of the mess, right up until it was clear Reed was paid more than $3.8 million during a yearlong period in 2001 and 2002 by Scanlon.
What’s worse, as my friends at AU noted yesterday, Reed was hired by the owners of one casino to use his influence to mobilize opposition to a new casino — and no one was told about Reed’s multiple ties and allegiances.
Reed’s involvement in this ongoing scandal has prompted him to rethink his priorities. But instead of hiring a legal team to protect him from an indictment, he’s hiring a campaign team. First for statewide office…
Ralph Reed, executive director at the Christian Coalition from 1989 to 1997 and a favorite of the White House, is “strongly considering” a run for Georgia lieutenant governor next year, Republican friends of Mr. Reed from the state tell The Washington Times.
…and then for national office.
Word that Ralph Reed plans to seek the lieutenant governorship of Georgia signals what friends say is the former Christian Coalition executive director’s ultimate ambition — 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
[…]
Associates say Mr. Reed, 43, whose picture first appeared on the cover of Time magazine nearly 10 years ago, hopes to use the lieutenant governor’s job to position himself to run for Georgia governor. Friends also say the Atlanta-based consultant’s long-held ambition is ultimately to win for himself the Republican presidential nomination that, as a campaign adviser, he has helped others to seek.
“First, he’s got to get his foot in the door” of electoral politics, a Republican friend of Mr. Reed’s confided, adding that the political calendar in Georgia dictates that “his move has to be next year.”
I suppose none of this should come as a surprise, consider his ambitions, but Reed’s past will make any kind of run outside of Georgia extremely difficult, even assuming he can successfully steer clear of a fraud conviction. After all, this is the same religious right-golden boy who once described his approach to politics as “guerilla warfare.”
“I want to be invisible,” Reed told the Virginian-Pilot in November 1991. “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.”
Sounds like presidential material, right?