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Religious Right's Ground Game, 2012
Ralph Reed, the main architect of the successful political development and mobilization efforts of the Christian Coalition in the 90s -- is back. Not that he ever really left, but he is back now with what he calls a "a 21st-century version of the Christian Coalition on steroids."
Adele Stan has the story at AlterNet -- including how the recent Wisconsin recall was a pilot project for November. Reed says that his Faith and Freedom Coalition, will contact some 27.1 million conservative voters as many as as dozen times before November as well as focus on getting voters, Stan reports to "vote early in states that permit it."
This is, in my opinion, the most important election related story about the Religious Right this year. It is a must read for anyone who is serious about the 2012 election, and for that matter, the future of American politics.
Here are a few excerpts. |
If you like what happened in Wisconsin, Reed implies, you're going to love the 2012 presidential race, when FFC reaches out to 27.1 million conservative voters; he promises that FFC will contact each of them between seven to 12 times to either get them to the polls, or better yet, vote early in states that permit it. Consider it payback, if you will, for the outcome of the 2008 presidential election.
The day after the election Barack Obama won by a wide margin, Reed says, he woke up feeling "like I'd been hit by a truck." Speaking of the Obama campaign, Reed explains: "We were embarrassed. They ran circles around us."
"I founded Faith and Freedom Coalition because I vowed that as long as I was alive, we were never going to get out-hustled on the ground again," he told a group of activists earlier in the day.
In the Wisconsin recall, Reed continued, FFC's 600,000 voter contacts ranged in form from mobile media, e-mail and snail-mail to old-fashioned door-knocking and the method that became the hallmark of the Christian Coalition under Reed's leadership during its heyday: the church-distributed voter guide. FFC doled out 100,000 of them, he said.
"So there were voters in Wisconsin who were getting e-mail from us, they were getting a text message from us, when they went to church on Sunday, our voter guide was in their church bulletin, and on Monday they got a knock on their door," Reed said. "Okay?"
After the session, I asked Reed why, if the unions are as good at turning out their base as everyone believes they are, did their Democratic allies lose the recall race.
"I think they did their job," he said. "We just did our job better...
Religious Right's Ground Game, 2012 | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)
Religious Right's Ground Game, 2012 | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)
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