GOP mobilizer scours state for lost voters

Famous for making the Christian Coalition a force, Ralph Reed sets out to sweep the Southeast for Bush.

	[AP photo]
	Ralph Reed, former Christian Coalition director, is head of George Bush's re-election effort in the Southeast.

Though Ralph Reed's national profile has ebbed considerably in the decade since Time magazine's cover dubbed him "the right hand of God," he is no less influential.

The boyish former Christian Coalition leader crisscrossed Florida last week a transformed political figure. Now he is Mr. GOP Mainstream, energizing social conservatives and moderate Republicans alike.

With Reed's legendary grass roots organizing skills and a reputation as one of the sharpest political minds in the country, President Bush tapped him for his campaign chairman of the Southeast, where Florida's 27 electoral votes are his region's weak link.

If the 43-year-old Reed helps pull off another Bush win in neck-and-neck Florida, his position will solidify as one of the country's top Republican thinkers.

"It is going to be like a high school basketball game that is decided at the final buzzer," said Reed, whose voter mobilization efforts in Georgia two years ago serve as a national model for the Bush-Cheney campaign. "We have to go full bore all the way through to the actual count."

With his GQ attire, knack for pithy sound bites and longtime emphasis on inclusiveness, Reed never quite fit the fundamentalist bogeyman image that critics sought to give him. Raised a Methodist in Miami, he caught the political bug in 1972, mesmerized by the Miami Democratic and Republican conventions.

More than his telegenic TV presence and political celebrity status, Reed's track record requires people to pay him close attention.

"Ralph Reed is a very savvy political operative," said Gov. Jeb Bush. "He is very knowledgeable about the intricacies of Florida politics and his advice and counsel is appreciated."

From 1989 to 1997, Reed built Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition into a potent national political force whose influence waned after he left to return to mostly secular political consulting. In 2000, when Arizona Sen. John McCain threatened to derail George Bush's campaign, Reed helped mobilize evangelical voters in South Carolina to beat McCain in that crucial primary.

A year later Georgia Republicans elected Reed as their party chairman, prompting fears that his Christian right background might hurt the party among swing voters. Instead Reed did for the Georgia GOP what he did for the Christian Coalition: County by county, neighborhood by neighborhood, he built an organization that could mobilize voters with pinpoint precision. And he produced stunning results.

Amid the Republican victories that swept the country in 2002, Reed's success in Georgia stood out. Sonny Perdue unseated Gov. Roy Barnes to become Georgia's first Republican governor since Reconstruction, and Republican Saxby Chambliss unseated the compelling Sen. Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam.

In the face of the Democrats' strong turnout, Reed's Republican machine posted stunning numbers. In recent elections Democrats typically had accounted for about 41 percent of the vote and Republicans 38 percent; in 2002, Republicans captured 45 percent of the vote and Democrats 38 percent.

"What they did was amazing, and it was Politics 101," said Steve Rosenthal, former political director of the AFL-CIO. "They identified voters who vote Republican in presidential years and don't vote in midterm elections. Then they bombarded them with contacts, mostly mailings and phone banks."

But Rosenthal and other Democratic strategists question whether the Georgia model will work in Florida in a presidential election year.

"They didn't find a whole lot of new Republican voters; they turned out voters who usually only voted in presidential elections," said Rosenthal, who now leads America Coming Together, a Democratic voter mobilization group aggressively working in Florida. "The problem they have now is you can't do that in a presidential election. You've got to figure out: How do you make the pie bigger?"

Which is precisely what the GOP is doing in Florida. They're working at peeling away non-Cuban Hispanic voters who often vote Democratic. They're targeting recent transplants to Florida and Republican-leaning voters who rarely turn out. In North Florida's Republican strongholds, they're aiming to spike turnout to never-seen levels.

Reed said specific neighborhood-by-neighborhood turnout targets, executed by an army of campaign volunteers, will make the difference.

"We will do our job, and when we do our job, we win," said Reed, whom a number of politicos see as a potential future Republican National Committee chairman.

That would complete his metamorphosis from frontline soldier in America's culture wars to elite mainstream leader in national politics. But losing Florida, which likely would cost Bush the White House, would be an ugly blemish on his record.

Reed has a fuzzy but, by most accounts, crucial volunteer role in the Florida effort.

The campaign staff for all purposes reports to Gov. Jeb Bush. Much of Reed's duties involve serving as a top surrogate and advocate for the campaign in newspapers and on TV and radio.

"He's a great utility player," said Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman, citing Reed's political judgment, skill with the media, network among Christian conservatives and loyalty to the president.

When Democrats gathered for their state convention in December, Reed ambled in to address the TV cameras while supporters of candidate Dennis Kucinich surrounded him, chanting anti-Bush slogans.

Reed is a key adviser for message and strategy, as well as a celebrity cheerleader who energizes Republican activists. Last week he worked the state from Jacksonville to Tampa.

"I jumped at the chance to see him," said Joe Spooner, an investment broker from Brandon who joined a couple dozen other Christian conservatives whom Reed urged to mobilize fellow church members for Bush. "No. 1, I think the guy's brilliant, and No. 2, he's done a lot a good things for the things he believes in."

Century Strategies, Reed's Atlanta-based consulting business, has served not only candidates but clients from Enron to Microsoft. Reed has promised his wife not to run for office himself until all four of their children, ages 15 to 6, are grown. He brushes off questions about future plans.

"All I know is I'm focused on Nov. 2," he said, "and I want to make sure that President Bush carries every state in my region."

Only one small matter threatens his success streak: Florida.

- Adam C. Smith can be reached at 727 893-8241 or adam@sptimes.com

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