Ralph Reed sought the Republican nomination for the office of Lieutenant Governor of Georgia but lost the primary election on July 18,2006, to state Senator Casey Cagle.
48 Facts About Ralph Reed
2.
Ralph Reed is a member of the Council for National Policy.
3.
Ralph Reed moved with his family to Toccoa, Georgia, in 1976, earning Eagle Scout at BSA Troop 77 and graduating from Stephens County High School in 1979.
4.
Ralph Reed attended the University of Georgia where he earned an AB in history in 1985.
5.
Ralph Reed was then discharged from his role on the college newspaper for plagiarism.
6.
Ralph Reed was a member of the Demosthenian Literary Society, the Jasper Dorsey Intercollegiate Debate Society, and College Republicans.
7.
Ralph Reed is an alumnus of the Leadership Institute in Arlington, Virginia, an organization that teaches conservative Americans how to influence public policy through activism and leadership.
8.
Ralph Reed obtained his PhD in American history from Emory University in 1991.
9.
Ralph Reed spent much of his college career as a political activist, taking six years to earn his undergraduate degree.
10.
Ralph Reed started with the University of Georgia College Republicans, steadily rising to state and then national leadership.
11.
Ralph Reed was later profiled in Gang of Five by Nina Easton, along with Grover Norquist and other young activists who got their start in that 1980s era.
12.
In 1981, Ralph Reed moved to Washington, DC, to intern at the College Republican National Committee.
13.
Ralph Reed has said that, in September 1983, he had a religious experience while at Bullfeathers, an upscale pub in Capitol Hill that was popular with staffers of the House of Representatives.
14.
Ralph Reed walked outside the pub to a phone booth, thumbed through the yellow pages under "Churches," and found the Evangelical Assembly of God Church in Camp Springs, Maryland.
15.
Ralph Reed visited the next morning and became a born-again Christian.
16.
Ralph Reed was temporarily arrested during an abortion protest at the Fleming Center Abortion Clinic in Raleigh but was not charged with any crime.
17.
Ralph Reed was hired by religious broadcaster and Presidential candidate Pat Robertson as executive director of the Christian Coalition in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
18.
Some alleged that another factor in Ralph Reed's decision was an investigation by Federal prosecutors due to charges made by the Christian Coalition's former chief financial officer, Judy Liebert, Ralph Reed resigned from his post, and moved to Georgia.
19.
On resigning as executive director of the Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed moved to the Atlanta, Georgia, suburb of Duluth to begin a career as a political consultant and lobbyist.
20.
In late 1997, Ralph Reed joined the campaign of Fulton County Commission Chairman Mitch Skandalakis for lieutenant governor of Georgia, becoming its general consultant.
21.
Ralph Reed planned a series of advertisements which included charges that Day had "desecrated Indian graves" on a plot of land owned by a Day family foundation.
22.
Ralph Reed helped Alabama Governor Fob James win renomination in a bitterly contested Republican primary, only to become the first Republican in over a decade to lose the Alabama governor's election.
23.
Immediately after the 1998 election, Ralph Reed shifted gears to corporate work.
24.
Ralph Reed is credited with attacks on Senator John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina presidential primary, together with Roberta Combs, then head of the South Carolina Christian Coalition, who later took over the national Christian Coalition.
25.
Ralph Reed apologized for the "appearance of conflict" but continued to accept the money until early 2005, when Microsoft terminated Ralph Reed in the midst of the Indian gaming scandal.
26.
In 2001, Ralph Reed mounted a campaign for State Chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, a volunteer job.
27.
Ralph Reed's candidacy attracted national media attention, and challenges from three opponents.
28.
Ralph Reed won on the first ballot, capturing almost 60 percent of the delegate vote against Shafer, who won 40 percent, and a third candidate, lobbyist Maria Rose Strollo, who won one percent.
29.
Ralph Reed was endorsed by the "Confederate Republican Caucus," a block of almost 500 "heritage" activists who had participated in the state convention as a protest against the removal of the Confederate battle emblem from the State Flag.
30.
Ralph Reed was asked to relinquish his job as State Chairman by Perdue, whose long-shot candidacy was largely ignored by Ralph Reed in favor of Chambliss.
31.
Ralph Reed supported the candidacy of Congressman Bob Barr, who had moved into the neighboring district of Congressman John Linder and challenged his renomination.
32.
Ralph Reed claimed support of the White House, access to the Bush fundraising apparatus and command of a large grass roots organization.
33.
Ralph Reed himself dismissed the poll as a face-saving gesture by an embarrassed Oxendine.
34.
Ralph Reed's campaign experienced a loss of momentum with revelations about his role in the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal.
35.
Bob Irvin, a former US House of Representatives Republican leader, was the first prominent Republican to publicly call on Ralph Reed to withdraw from the race.
36.
Aides to Speaker of the House Glenn Richardson, ostensibly neutral in the race, released a poll that showed Ralph Reed's mounting negatives could hurt Perdue and the Republican ticket.
37.
On March 21,2006, political consultant Matt Towery of Insider Advantage released a poll showing Ralph Reed represented an eight-point drag on the Perdue ticket.
38.
Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, whose own ambitions had been upended by Ralph Reed's candidacy, endorsed Cagle in June 2006, saying that Ralph Reed's nomination threatened the success of the Republican ticket.
39.
On July 18,2006, Ralph Reed was defeated in the Republican primary, losing the nomination to State Senator Casey Cagle.
40.
Ralph Reed was named in the scandal arising from lobbying work performed by Jack Abramoff on behalf of Indian gambling tribes.
41.
E-mails released by federal investigators in June 2005 revealed that Ralph Reed secretly accepted payments from Abramoff to lobby against Indian casino gambling and oppose an Alabama education lottery.
42.
Additional e-mails released in November 2005 show that Ralph Reed worked for another Abramoff client seeking to block a congressional ban on Internet gambling.
43.
In 2004, Ralph Reed confirmed that he had been paid more than $1 million in fees by lobbyists working on behalf of American Indian casinos.
44.
In December 2005, three Texas public interest groups filed a complaint with Travis County Attorney David Escamilla on December 1,2005, alleging that Ralph Reed failed to register as a lobbyist in 2001 or 2002 when he was working for Abramoff.
45.
The report said that Ralph Reed had used his contacts to conservative Christian groups to prevent the opening or expansion of casinos competing with the casinos operated by Abramoff's clients from 1998 to 2002 and that he had been paid a total of $5.3 million through Abramoff's law firm and from organizations controlled by Abramoff's partner Michael Scanlon.
46.
The report did not accuse Ralph Reed of having known about Abramoff's illegal activities.
47.
Ralph Reed was never charged with any wrongdoing concerning the Indian gambling scandals.
48.
Ralph Reed has written seven books; four non-fiction and three fictional political thrillers.