Christian Coalition pat r

<h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading">===</h1><div>see reed, faith and freedom</div><div>
</div><div>see pat robertson televangelist</div><h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading"><div style="font-weight: 400;">--</div><div style="">

===bad code<a href="https://www.alternet.org/pat-robertson-2661178558/">https://www.alternet.org/pat-robertson-2661178558/ </a> Thursday, June 8, the Rev. Pat Robertson — a far-right Christian fundamentalist and the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) and the Christian Coalition ...— died in Virginia Beach at the age of 93. Robertson was a controversial figure in U.S. politics and within Christianity, but he was also highly influential. And he helped shape the radi...

late conservative Sen. Barry Goldwate ;(R-Arizona) vehemently warned against more than 40 years ago.Robertson founded CBN in 1961, launching his program "The 700 Club" several years later. But it wasn't until the early 1980s that he became so influential in the Republican Party. Along with the late Moral Majority <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/this-1980-report-christian-nationalist" target="_self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">founder the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr.</a> and Pentecostal evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, Robertson was a major supporter of Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign and helped the Religious Right gain considerable influence in the Republican Party.''

>It wasn't influence that Goldwater welcomed. The Arizona senator was part of Reagan's right-wing coalition, but he viewed the Religious Right as dangerous and saw far-right evangelicals like Robertson, Falwell and Swaggart as&n...President Lyndon B. Johnson's campaign painted Goldwater as a war-mongering extremist in the 1964 presidential election; during the 1980s, Goldwater's vehement opposition to the Religious Right made him an unlikely ally of liberals and progressives and a favorite among right-wing libertarians.READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/cassidy-hutchinson-2657757307" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">'Flag-waving' liberal Norman Lear, now 100, warns against the 'threat of authoritarianism' America faces</a>Goldwater warned, "Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the (Republican) Party — and they're sure trying to do so — it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."Goldwater's warning was downright prophetic. From the early 1980s on, the Religious Right has maintained a stranglehold on the GOP. Conservative Republicans who openly oppose the Religious Right the way that Goldwater did will not get very far in a Republican presidential primary.Robertson himself ran for president in 1988, ultimately losing the GOP nomination to then-Vice President George H.W. Bush. As Robertson's supporters saw it, Bush 41 wasn't far enough to the right. Regardless, Bush enjoyed a decisive victory over the Democratic nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mike Dukakis, in the general election.Goldwater had nothing against Christianity per se, either Protestant or Catholic. But he believed that Robertson and Falwell embodied a very dangerous, fanatical and intolerant strain of religious fundamentalism. And many years after Goldwater's death, Donald Trump was more than happy to encourage that fanaticism during his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. Trump sees far-right white evangelicals as crucial to his success in the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-keeps-edge-among-evangelicals-there-is-an-opening-challengers-2023-04-20/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">2024 election</a>.READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/maga-republicans-threaten-librarians-prison/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">'A very frightening period': MAGA Republicans threaten librarians with prison time</a>In an <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/09/opinions/pat-robertson-pat-buchanan-donald-trump-hemmer/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">op-ed published by CNN's website</a> on June 9, historian Nicole Hemmer emphasizes that Robertson helped pave the way for the MAGA movement."One of Robertson's most lasting legacies was in the world of politics," <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/09/opinions/pat-robertson-pat-buchanan-donald-trump-hemmer/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Hemmer explains</a>. "Running in the Republican presidential primary in 1988, Robertson pioneered a new style of candidacy that would open the door to presidential hopefuls like Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump. Long before Trump leapt from reality television to the Oval Office, Robertson showed how a celebrity with no political experience could launch a national political campaign."<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/09/opinions/pat-robertson-pat-buchanan-donald-trump-hemmer/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Hemmer notes</a> that Robertson's Christian Coalition "became a powerful political force after absorbing the leftover funds of the Robertson campaign — and the millions of names and addresses Robertson had collected while he ran for president.""Robertson also became a vector for vivid conspiracy theories on the right," <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/09/opinions/pat-robertson-pat-buchanan-donald-trump-hemmer/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Hemmer observes</a>. "His bestselling book 'The New World Order,' published in 1991, played off Bush's use of the phrase in a speech a year earlier. But rather than simply bash Bush, the book covered every internationalist conspiracy imaginable. Apocalyptic, paranoid and popular, Robertson's conspiracy tract tapped a rich vein of right-wing religion and politics — one that continues to feed the party today…. No assessment of the (Republican) Party's march away from democracy and into demagoguery can be understood without understanding Robertson's role."After Robertson's death, liberal Washington Post opinion columnist <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/08/pat-robertson-death-rick-perlstein-christian-nationalism-republicans/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Greg Sargent</a> discussed his influence with historian Rick Perlstein, author of the 2020 book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Reaganland-Americas-Right-Turn-1976-1980/dp/1476793050/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?encoding=UTF8&qid=1686326167&sr=1-1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">"Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980."</a><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/08/pat-robertson-death-rick-perlstein-christian-nationalism-republicans/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Perlstein told Sargent</a>, "Robertson's vision buttresses the entire edifice of right-wing evangelical America, in particular his institution-building work creating alternatives to supposedly demonic secular liberal America…. When you think about a right-winger living within the bubble of Fox News, that was pioneered by the Christian Broadcasting Network. The force behind this was 100-percent Pat Robertson. The role of these kinds of institutions in birthing the modern right was that it became a self-supporting world of its own — an entire parallel reality."READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/how-moral-majority-founder-jerry-falwell-sr-helped-pave-the-way-for-trumpism-and-the-white-nationalist-horrors-of-the-trump-era" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">How Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, Sr. helped pave the way for Trumpism and the white nationalist horrors of the Trump era</a>Read Nicole Hemmer's CNN op-ed <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/09/opinions/pat-robertson-pat-buchanan-donald-trump-hemmer/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">at this link</a> and find Greg Sargent's Washington Post column <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/08/pat-robertson-death-rick-perlstein-christian-nationalism-republicans/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">here</a> (subscription required).<div id="story_page_post_article" style="font-weight: 400; font-size: medium; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="tp-cxense-placeholder-inline tp-widget-placeholder"><div id="cxense-ff213be4f89eb23ae78d1f6cdb9c24c7b1534ebf"><div class="around-the-web" style="font-weight: 400; font-size: medium; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.444px; list-style: none;"><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2013/06/20-vile-quotes-against-women-religious-leaders-st-augustine-pat-robertson" class="from-your-sitelink rm-stats-tracked" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">20 Vile Quotes Against Women By Religious Leaders From St. Augustine to Pat Robertson ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/why-far-right-white-evangelicals-are-among-vladimir-putins-strongest-american-supporters-journalist" class="from-your-sitelink rm-stats-tracked" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Why far-right White evangelicals are among Vladimir Putin’s strongest American supporters ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/confrontational-christian-nationalists-are-pushing-anti-vaxxer-extremism-report" class="from-your-sitelink rm-stats-tracked" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">How 'confrontational Christian nationalists' are pushing anti-vaxxer extremism: report ›</a></li></ul><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 10px;">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.444px; list-style: none;"><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/08/us/pat-robertson-dead.html" class="around-the-weblink rm-stats-tracked" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Pat Robertson, Who Gave Christian Conservatives Clout, Is Dead at ... ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/09/us/pat-robertson-facebook-remark/index.html" class="around-the-weblink rm-stats-tracked" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Ten controversial Pat Robertson quotes | CNN ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/13/haiti.pat.robertson/index.html" class="around-the-weblink rm-stats-tracked" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Pat Robertson says Haiti paying for 'pact to the devil' - CNN.com ›</a></li></ul></div>=</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">=</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-is-bleeding-support-from-the-only-voters-who-have-stuck-with-him-since-2016/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-is-bleeding-support-from-the-only-voters-who-have-stuck-with-him-since-2016/</a></div><div style="font-weight: 400;">
</div><div style="font-weight: 400;">620 an raw story </div><div style="font-weight: 400;">Donald Trump is losing support from his evangelical base as he lurches from one crisis into another.Numerous polls show that religious Americans, like most other Americans, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/us/politics/trump-polls-christians-evangelicals.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR0pIVycXh7IVqQCB4X8l6dT6ldW9jg7NRtKO0nU9HSKP2yLIUj8anj1EUA" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">disapprove of the president’s performance</a>, and that could imperil his re-election chances, reported the New York Times.Nearly 80 percent of white evangelicals — a group that’s already shrinking as a share of the electorate — approved of Trump’s performance in March, but his handling of the coronavirus pandemic has bled 15 points from their support, according to a new poll from Public Religion Research Institute.“He had an opportunity in March when people were looking to him,” said Robert Jones, the institute’s chief executive, “and then within four weeks he squandered it.”Those losses could be offset by efforts from activist group’s such as Ralph Reed’s Christian Coalition, which plans to spend tens of millions of dollars to identify and register new religious conservative voters and rallying right-wing Christians.And another PRRI poll from last year found that 31 percent of white evangelical voters said there was almost nothing Trump could do to lose their support.</div><div style="font-weight: 400;"></div></div></div></div></h1><h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading">=</h1><h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading">Christian Coalition of America</h1>

<h3 id="siteSub">From SourceWatch</h3>

<div id="contentSub">(Redirected from <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Christian_Coalition&redirect=no" title="Christian Coalition">Christian Coalition</a>)</div>

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The <a href="http://www.cc.org" class="external text" title="http://www.cc.org" rel="nofollow">Christian Coalition of America</a> (CC), founded in 1989 by Rev. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pat_Robertson" title="Pat Robertson">Pat Robertson</a>, claims to be "the largest and most active <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Conservative" title="Conservative">conservative</a> grassroots political organization in America ... [offering] people of faith the vehicle to be actively involved in shaping their government - from the County Courthouse to the halls of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Congress" title="Congress" class="mw-redirect">Congress</a>."<a href="http://www.cc.org" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.cc.org" rel="nofollow">[1]</a>

The Christian Coalition says that it is "a coalition of pro-family Roman Catholics, evangelicals, and other people of faith working together to become the unified voice of families in America." The organization says that it has "well over a million supporters and 1,500 local chapters in all 50 states. During the 2000 elections [it] passed out 70 million voter guides. Several million of those guides were printed in Spanish." <a href="http://www.cc.org" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.cc.org" rel="nofollow">[2]</a>

The CC's president is <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Roberta_Combs&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Roberta Combs (page does not exist)">Roberta Combs</a>, who "has strategically relocated its National Headquarters to Washington, DC, ... [to] further enhance" the organization's "effectiveness in supporting the pro-family agenda." <a href="http://www.cc.org" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.cc.org" rel="nofollow">[3]</a>

<h2>Contents</h2>

[<a href="javascript:toggleToc()" class="internal" id="togglelink">hide</a>]</div>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Christian_Coalition#Contract_with_the_American_Family">1 Contract with the American Family</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Christian_Coalition#External_links">2 External links</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Christian_Coalition#References">2.1 References</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Christian_Coalition#Articles">2.2 Articles</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

</ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2>Contract with the American Family</h2>

In May 1995, the Christian Coalition's "Contract with the American Family", which was "the brainchild of TV religionist" <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pat_Robertson" title="Pat Robertson">Pat Robertson</a>, was "introduced with much fanfare" for consideration by <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Congress" title="Congress" class="mw-redirect">Congress</a>. <a href="http://www.christianethicstoday.com/Issue/002/The%20Christian%20Coalitions%20Contract%20With%20the%20American%20Family%20-%20An%20Analysis%20By%20Steve%20Watkins_002.htm" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.christianethicstoday.com/Issue/002/The%20Christian%20Coalitions%20Contract%20With%20the%20American%20Family%20-%20An%20Analysis%20By%20Steve%20Watkins_002.htm" rel="nofollow">[4]</a>

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Kuo" title="David Kuo">David Kuo</a>, who was later to become Special Assistant to President <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_W._Bush" title="George W. Bush" class="mw-redirect">George W. Bush</a> and Deputy Director of the White House <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Office_of_Faith-Based_and_Community_Initiatives" title="Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives">Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives</a>, as a "top adviser to the coalition's main political strategist", "helped draft the coalition's manifesto" which "argues that the nation should 'abolish all major federal welfare programs' and turn them over to 'private and religious organizations'," <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=NPR" title="NPR" class="mw-redirect">NPR</a>'s Daniel Zwerdling <a href="http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript237_full.html" class="external text" title="http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript237_full.html" rel="nofollow">reported</a> on the October 10, 2003, edition of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=PBS" title="PBS">PBS</a>'s "NOW with Bill Moyers".

The Contract offered ten provisions <a href="http://www.skepticfiles.org/atheist2/cwaf.htm" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.skepticfiles.org/atheist2/cwaf.htm" rel="nofollow">[5]</a>:

<ol>

<li>Restoring Religious Equality ("Religious Equality Amendment")</li>

<li>Returning Education Control to the Local Level ("Transfer funding of the federal Department of Education to families and local school boards.")</li>

<li>Promoting School Choice</li>

<li>Protecting Parental Rights (Passage of "Enactment of a Parental Rights Act and defeat of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.")</li>

<li>Family-Friendly Tax Relief ("Reduce the tax burden on the American family, eliminate the marriage penalty, and pass the Mothers and Homemakers' Rights Act.")</li>

<li>Restoring Respect for Human Life</li>

<li>Encouraging Support of Private Charities</li>

<li>Restricting Pornography</li>

<li>Privatizing the Arts ("The National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and Legal Services Corporation should become voluntary organizations funded through private contributions.") This included the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Legal_Services_Corporation&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Legal Services Corporation (page does not exist)">Legal Services Corporation</a> (LSC), a "federally chartered corporation established to provide legal assistance to the poor."</li>

<li>Crime Victim Restitution (Note: restitution to victims was the least of concerns; the Contract, in essence, called for more work and less play for prisoners.)</li>

</ol>

In his June 1995 <a href="http://www.christianethicstoday.com/Issue/002/The%20Christian%20Coalitions%20Contract%20With%20the%20American%20Family%20-%20An%20Analysis%20By%20Steve%20Watkins_002.htm" class="external text" title="http://www.christianethicstoday.com/Issue/002/The%20Christian%20Coalitions%20Contract%20With%20the%20American%20Family%20-%20An%20Analysis%20By%20Steve%20Watkins_002.htm" rel="nofollow">analysis</a> of the "Contract", Steve Watkins concluded in Christian Ethics Today that the Coalition's "concept of what Christianity represents actually takes the form of advocacy for the privileged and powerful as over against the underprivileged and powerless! They seem to hold that certain groups possess the right, yes, the responsibility, to enforce certain ideologies as the only means of true expression in a democratic society."

Also see <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ralph_Reed" title="Ralph Reed" class="mw-redirect">Ralph Reed</a>, "Contract With the American Family: A Bold Plan," Ballantine Books (June 1, 1995), <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Special:BookSources/0345402537" class="internal">ISBN 0345402537</a> (paperback).

<h2>External links</h2>

<h3>References</h3>

<h3>Articles</h3>

<ul>

<li>William Norman Grigg, <a href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1995/vo11no13/vo11no13_coalition.htm" class="external text" title="http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1995/vo11no13/vo11no13_coalition.htm" rel="nofollow">"Right Problems, Wrong Solutions. The Constitution is barely mentioned in the Christian Coalition's 'Contract',"</a> The New American, June 26, 1995.</li>

<li>Bill Berkowitz, "<a href="http://www.mediatransparency.com/story.php?storyID=165" class="external text" title="http://www.mediatransparency.com/story.php?storyID=165" rel="nofollow">End Times for the Christian Coalition?</a>", Media Transparency, December 6, 2006.</li>

<li>Chris Frates, "<a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10489.html" class="external text" title="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10489.html" rel="nofollow">Christian group clashes with right over Net rights</a>," Politico.com, May 21, 2008.</li>

<li>John Eggerton, "<a href="http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6570305.html?rssid=193" class="external text" title="http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6570305.html?rssid=193" rel="nofollow">Boehner, Conservative Groups Weigh In on Localism: FCC Chairman Kevin Martin Hears from Rep. John Boehner, Americans for Tax Reform, Christian Coalition, Citizens United</a>," Broadcasting & Cable, June 13, 2008.</li>

</ul>

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<a href="http://open.salon.com/blog/marygrav/2010/09/09/karl_roveralph_reedchristian_coalition_the_adlshoah">http://open.salon.com/blog/marygrav/2010/09/09/karl_roveralph_reedchristian_coalition_the_adlshoah</a>

all <a href="http://dir.salon.com/topics/christian_coalition/">http://dir.salon.com/topics/christian_coalition/</a>

Change was what Pat Robertson had in mind at the January 1989 inaugural celebration for President George H. W. Bush.  There he met Ralph Reed and invited the twenty-seven-year –old political campaigner to join him in starting a new organization.  Reed was completing his doctorate at Emory University.  He was perfect for the job.  In early twenties, he had worked on several Congressional campaigns and had been the director of two successful right-wing student organizations, College Republicans and Students for America.  He was a recent convert to the evangelical faith.  He was young enough that, unlike Robertson, he had not spent years generating a track record of embarrassing public statements.  In fact, early press profiles of Reed usually mentioned his fresh innocent face.  He looked like a choirboy but his role model was the late political consultant Lee Atwater whom Reed described as “a bare-knuckled, brass tacks practitioner of hard-ball politics.” (76)...

James Moore and Wayne Slater in The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power (2006)

p30-

<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=wAmrSGSMrdIC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=christian+coalition+bush+gop+rove&source=bl&ots=ZD89DuVHUr&sig=FpB5PtMKZxduztlU_b4YGlr9Idg&hl=en&ei=3YvuTN2-JYSasAPfwMnMCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=christian%20coalition%20bush%20gop%20rove&f=false">http://books.google.com/books?id=wAmrSGSMrdIC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=christian+coalition+bush+gop+rove&source=bl&ots=ZD89DuVHUr&sig=FpB5PtMKZxduztlU_b4YGlr9Idg&hl=en&ei=3YvuTN2-JYSasAPfwMnMCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=christian%20coalition%20bush%20gop%20rove&f=false</a>

claim that as Karl Rove was asserting his control over the Texas GOP in the 1990s, Ralph Reed was busily laying the foundation for just such an alliance.  Shortly after George W. Bush took office as Texas governor, Reed appeared before a national meeting of the Anti-Defamation League.  Reed’s employer, Pat Robertson, had been widely quoted as describing America as a “Christian nation” and frequently blamed problems in the United States on non-Christians in government.  Rove and Reed understood that a more nuanced approach was necessary if Jewish voters were truly to be brought under the Republican tent.  Jewish voters accounted for only about 2 percent o the U.S. population but were an important source of campaign money to Democrats—funds Rove envisioned diverting to the GOP.  There was time to deal with Bush’s Jewish problem after he’d solidified his political base in Texas, but in the interim, Reed’s overture to national Jewish groups was an important political maneuver for the longer term.

2000:

<h3>527 Groups</h3>

<ul>

<li>The Christian Coalition:</li>

</ul>

The Christian Coalition has been in a bitter dispute with the IRS for 10 years over the IRS’s refusal to approve its 501(c)4 tax status application. <a href="http://www.cc.org/" title="The Christian Coalition">The Christian Coalition</a> has been a longtime campaign force, widely distributing voter guides and placing mass get-out-the-vote telephone calls. In 1996, the Virginia Beach, Va.-based group sent out 46 million voter-guides to 125,000 churches. This primary season it sent out 2.5 million voter guides in California alone. In 1999, the Christian Coalition decided finally to retract its application for tax-exempt status, and created a 527 fund.

The group is now splintered between Christian Coalition International, using the existing headquarters in Virginia Beach and working under 527 status, and the Christian Coalition of America, headquartered in Bedford, Texas. The Texas Christian Coalition had already received tax exempt status as a (c)4 . It has since changed its name to Christian Coalition of America and plans to absorb the Christian Coalitions’ nationwide efforts at voter education. According to leader Pat Robertson, the group plans on distributing 75 million voter guides, scorecards and other resources as well as mobilizing volunteers through his expansive congregation network to elect George W. Bush in 2000.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/articles/entry/566/

----

building dossiers on voters?! deputized to hunt out lefty reporters

<a href="http://www.theocracywatch.org/clarkson_inside.html">http://www.theocracywatch.org/clarkson_inside.html</a>

Church and State, November, 1993

Inside The Covert Coalition

Frederick Clarkson

Although President Bush's Visit Was A Public Endorsement, Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition Prefers To Do Most Of Its Work Behind Closed Doors

In November of last year freelance writer Frederick Clarkson went under cover to report on the activities at the Christian Coalition's "Road to Victory" Conference and Strategy Briefing in Virginia Beach, Va. Despite heightened security measures at this year's event, Clarkson was again able to attend the meeting and bring Church And State readers this special report from inside the Pat Robertson political machine.

Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, doesn't like security breaches. "I don't want to be too overly dramatic," he confided in the opening session of his group's "Road to Victory II" Conference. But it seems that at last year's conference, some people from "left wing organizations" got in and "subsequently wrote articles."

Reed wanted to make sure that didn't happen again. Thus, the 1,200 conference attendees and I were "hereby commissioned as deputy constables" to help evict any reporters who strayed into the workshops and strategy sessions.

I kept a sharp eye out for "left-wingers" in those closed sessions. But I didn't spot any.

The mostly closed-door conclave in September, which featured a speech by President George Bush, marked a certain coming of age for Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition (which seeks outright control of the Republican Party by 1996). The religious broadcaster's army of followers is powerful enough to compel the presence of an incumbent president; yet it is controversial enough to require the secrecy of a covert operation for routine intra-party politicking.

Conference attendees from across the country flocked to Robertson headquarters in Virginia Beach on a warm autumn weekend to talk about the advanced new computer and television components of their grassroots mobilization on behalf of "pro-family" candidates. They learned the mechanics of how to take over theRepublican Party from the inside and attended issues workshops on abortion, taxes, pornography and the "homosexual agenda." National figures such as Education Secretary Lamar Alexander, his predecessor William Bennett and the ubiquitous Oliver North spoke.

These speeches and President Bush's address were open to the news media. Twenty-two other speeches and workshops were not. Security was intended to be tight. As Reed told the Virginian-Pilot newspaper, all conferees were carefully screened by Christian Coalition state coordinators to make sure only Robertson allies were admitted.

George Bush's visit to the hub of the Robertson empire was the conference's main event.

Christian Coalition activists had expected a major address on social issues. "White House sources," said Reed, had indicated the president's talk would be "the central campaign speech by the president on family values."

Bush's remarks, however, deviated very little from his standard stump speech-the economy, private school vouchers and family values. School prayer and gay rights got no mention at all, and even abortion restrictions, a topic dear to the Religious Right, drew only a single sentence.

Bush even softened the Republican campaign's family values stance, embracing Murphy Brown-style single parent families. "I do not pass judgment," said the president, "on the kind of family, you live in, whether both parents work or just one parent, or whether you're apart of a single parent family. Families are not measured by what kind, but by how close."

This middle-of-the-road rhetoricwhich briefly removed the smile from Robertson's usually avuncular facewas soon followed, however, by Bush remarks that warmly endorsed the television evangelist and his Christian Coalition. "Let me say how deeply I support all the work you're doing to restore the spiritual foundation of this nation," the president observed. "And I say this-the longer that Barbara and I are privileged to live in the White House, the more I understand what Lincoln meant when he said he went to his knees in prayer."

To further please Robertson, Bush greeted over 100 major Christian Coalition donors and invited guests at a private reception in the rose garden of Pat Robertson's walled estate. With black swans gliding by on a pond and a harpist playing Pachelbel's "Canon in D Minor," the televangelist personally introduced members of his "inner circle" to the presidential candidate, mentioning their "help" or their "contributions."

Bush's Virginia Beach visit was apparently a deftly crafted campaign venture designed to shore up the president's standing among Religious Right activists without jeopardizing support among GOP moderates and ordinary voters who might be turned off by Robertson's shrill language and divisive religio-political agenda.

According to the Washington Post, top Bush aide James A. Baker III intentionally scheduled the Virginia Beach speech for 7:40 p.m., late enough to ensure that no coverage appeared on the network news programs and past the deadlines of many newspapers. To further deflect attention, Baker reportedly arranged for Bush to announce the sale of F15 fighter planes to Saudi Arabia at a campaign stop earlier in the day, thus attracting press attention to that story.

The strategy worked fairly well. The Virginia Beach pilgrimage drew little national media scrutiny. Even The New York Times, the nation's "newspaper of record," failed to record the event. But the carefully calibrated Bush courtship of the Religious Right wasn't lost on some hardliners.

The morning after the president spoke, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation addressed the bitter GOP factional fight between moderates and rightwingers in a closed conference session.

"It is very important," he declared, "that we not be pushed around as a movement, nor taken for granted by anybody. I do not want to see this movement become to one political party, what the blacks ... have become to another political party.

"You know," he continued, "I'm not against having these rallies. And ... candidates coming and presenting themselves .... I support the man who spoke last night. I'll vote for him. But let's not have any illusions about what all of this is about. They wouldn't be caught dead with us under other circumstances. And the only reason they come here is because they're in trouble-and we bail them out-and then they turn their back on us and give us nothing in return," he declared, his voice rising. "And we can no longer stand for it!"

Weyrich's blast provoked a loud and sustained ovation from the crowd.

"We are in a war," Weyrich observed. There are, he insisted, two main components of a winning strategy for that conflict: organization and communication. He envisions the Christian Coalition as the main organizational structure.

The key communications mode is the newly created National Empowerment Television (NET)-a closed circuit, interactive satellite TV system produced by the Weyrich-run Coalitions for America. Through NET, leaders of the Christian Right can give their marching orders on electoral tactics and lobbying, and even hold national or intra-state teleconferences. With Ralph Reed on the NET board, Weyrich expects that Christian Coalition affiliates will be plugging in soon.

The national impact could be great. Although it is only three years old, the Christian Coalition claims 250,000 members and 550 chapters. Press reports indicate a $13million war chest. All these resources are devoted to revoking the constitutional separation of church and state and giving Robertson and likeminded religionists a controlling influence in American society. Their first goal is dominance in the Republican Party.

Although the Christian Coalition is ostensibly a "nonpartisan" citizens action group, partisanship was everywhere apparent at the recent "Road to Victory II" Conference. This fact was perhaps best crystallized when one delegate declared in a general session, "It is impossible for a Christian to vote for a Democrat." His comment was greeted by applause and laughter.

Although the Coalition presents itself as a "grassroots" organization, in fact it is a top-down tightly controlled political unit. At the state level, a recently obtained copy of the "Pennsylvania Christian Coalition County Action Plan" reveals the hierarchical control. For example, the document notes that "starting a chapter will not necessarily be done through a democratic process." The state office assigns a president, who in turn appoints an executive committee.

Information also flows from the top down. The executive committee of the local chapter appoints "Public Affairs Representatives" in local congregations who "are recruited to serve as a conduit for information to their churches."

Given this leadership structure, it is significant that the Rev. Billy McCormack, a Louisiana political activist with a disturbing record in regard to ex-Nazi, exKlansman, ex-presidential candidate David Duke, is one of four directors of the Christian Coalition, along with Pat Robertson, Robertson's son Gordon and Dick Weinhold of the CC's Texas affiliate. (McCormack, a Shreveport minister, is also the director of the Louisiana Christian Coalition.)

The McCormack-led Robertson forces, along with other ultraconservative allies, have controlled the Louisiana GOP since 1988. They blocked efforts by party moderates to denounce Duke during his ascent in Louisiana politics and refused to investigate charges that he was selling Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf and other hate literature from his state legislative office.

Although the national GOP, led by Ronald Reagan and George Bush, repudiated Duke in 1989 (when Duke ran as a Republican for the state legislature), it wasn't until November, 1990 that Robertson publicly urged McCormack to "examine" Duke's record. The Louisiana clergyman apparently found little to concern him. Although McCormack stopped short of a public endorsement in the 1991 race, Duke received 69 percent of the white evangelical vote as the unsuccessful GOP nominee for governor.With this record of dalliance with Duke, it was a quietly dramatic moment at the Christian Coalition gathering in September when McCormack was seated next to President Bush on the dais during the presidential visit and address.

Perhaps not surprisingly, there were few blacks (perhaps a dozen out of 1,200) among the Road to Victory delegates, and no black speakers. One young man from Michigan (who was white) found it "kind of disappointing" that there were "not more of my brothers and sisters in Christ who are black" at the conference. He asked Gary Bauer of James Dobson's Family Research Council, who was at the podium, how "we ... the Christian Right, could do a better job of reaching out to our black brothers in Christ? "Calling the point "extremely important," Bauer complained, "You know how our opponents try to picture us. If we're not radical right-wingers, we're racists. We're just barely a step past the Ku Klux Klan. We're bigots, hatemongers, all the rest of it." Thus, he felt, "it behooves us to go the extra mile to make a common cause with black Americans."

Bauer was applauded for his expressed hope that the Coalition's next conference include "a third or a fourth or a fifth of this audience being our black brothers and sisters."

But the subject did not come up again. The reason, of course, is that it is difficult to take affirmative action and at the same time feature top leaders like McCormack who run interference for David Duke.

In their quest for Republican Party control, Christian Coalition activists have unseated incumbent county GOP committee members in party contests across the country, often turning out churchesfull of voters in election day surprises.

Guy Rogers, the Coalition's National Field Director, complains they are unfairly accused of being "anti-democratic" and "infiltrating" the party. "We're just good American citizens who believe we should get involved and want to make it work," he declared. "I mean, what's wrong with that?"

Rogers' protests notwithstanding, the Pennsylvania manual reveals a covert modus operandi. "You should never mention the name Christian Coalition in Republican circles," the manual advises. The leadership of each county chapter is to include a "Republican Party Liaison" who is to "become directly involved in the local Republican Central Committee so that you are an insider.

"This way," the manual continues, "you can get a copy of the local committee rules and a feel for who is in the current local Republican Committee."

The Christian Coalition's liaison then is to recruit conservatives for vacant party posts or to run against moderates or others who "put the Republican Party ahead of principles."

In more candid moments, Christian Coalition leaders are boastful about their "stealth" tactics.

"We've learned how to move under the radar in the cover of the night with shrubbery strapped to our helmets," the CC's Reed told Newsday. "It's like being a good submarine captain: You come up, fire three missiles and then dive."

Meanwhile, among the facts raising 'eyebrows at the IRS is $64,000 which the Christian Coalition, a tax-exempt group, received from the National Republican Senatorial Committee in October 1990just before the November election. Perhaps coincidentally, Coalition activists assisted the come-from-behind re-election drive of Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) that year.

In an early use of a tactic the Coalition has since employed widely, 750,000 "voter guides" were distributed, mostly through churches, on the Sunday just before the Tuesday vote.

"The press had no idea what we were doing," said Regional Director Judy Haynes at the Christian Coalition conference last year. "And they still don't know what we did."

While reports of such victories give the group momentum going into the November elections and beyond, they also may lead to some bumps and detours on the "Road to Victory."

The Washington Post recently reported an ongoing IRS investigation of possible violations of the Coalition's provisional 501(c)(4) nonprofit tax status. At issue is the Coalition's electoral and GOP activities, which may exceed the limits of federal tax guidelines.

This potential problem, however, seems to be of little concern to Christian Coalition activists this year. They claim they will distribute 40 million "non-partisan" presidential voter guides (including one million in New York and 2.5 million in Florida) and millions more aimed at candidates in state and local races.

According to literature mailed to evangelical and fundamentalist churches across the country, unlimited numbers of the "Christian Coalition Family Values Voter Guide" are available for the asking.

Signed by Robertson, Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright, Southern Baptist Convention President Ed Young and former SBC president Adrian Rogers, the cover letter implores "Christian leaders" to "provide your members with the nonpartisan knowledge they need to prosper as citizens." The flier assures readers that the Christian Coalition is a "non-profit organization that is not affiliated with any political party and does not endorse candidates."

The voters guide then goes on to charge that Democrat Bill Clinton supports "abortion on demand," homosexual rights, raising income taxes, tax-funded abortion and condom distribution in schools. Clinton opposes, the guide says, a balanced budget amendment, parental choice in education (vouchers), term limits and increased funding for the Strategic Defense Initiative (the so-called "Star Wars" system).

In contrast, Bush is listed as taking the opposite position of all these issues. (The two candidates are both listed as supporting the line-item veto and the death penalty.) Democratic Party officials insist the guide is biased and misleading. Avi Lavelle, press secretary for the Clinton campaign, called it a "gross oversimplifcation."

Computerized voter identification and voter guides continue to be the twin engines of the Christian Coalition's electoral strategy. They have worked dramatically well. For example, in Central Florida (in and around Orlando), 22 of 27 Coalition-backed candidates won GOP primaries in September.

"We want to build the largest voter file in America," said Guy Rogers.

Comprised of anti-abortion and anti-gay voters, the files contain a variety of other personal and political data about individuals so that, according to Rogers, "we not only know who they are but what precinct they vote in.

"That right there," he slowly intoned, "is the ammo for Uzis. One of the prob lems we've (had) as Christians," he said, extending the violent metaphor, "is we've pointed Uzis at the opposition, but when we've pulled the trigger, there've been no bullets."

Christian Right leaders are anxious to expand the range of issues that animate their constituents. Opposition to abortion has been the rallying point of past efforts, but homosexuality is apparently the next big issue designed to stir emotions and win the organization support for its larger goals.

Guy Rogers gets unnervingly agitated about the political accomplishments and level of organization of the gay community. "Why do you think the homosexuals have made so many inroads the last few years?" he asked. "Because they have so many people? No! Not only do they not have a lot of people, they are dying off. And they're dying young."

The conference's best attended workshop, a session on the "Homosexual Agenda," drew about half the attendees (who chose among four concurrent sessions). It was led by Boston Herald columnist Don Feder and Lon Mabon of the Oregon Citizens Alliance (a Christian Coalition affiliate). Mabon is spearheading an Oregon ballot referendum this year that would require government to oppose homosexuality, an initiative that the Coalition hopes to replicate in other states.

What does all this mean? As evidenced by the extraordinary Republican National Convention and a string of electoral successes, Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition are fast becoming a powerful force in the GOP, and indeed in American society at large. So far, they're doing so with little more than a disciplined voting bloc, computers and political smarts. How long this small, but fervent faction can out-organize the vast majority in many areas remains to be seen. Meanwhile, Christian Coalition activists are buoyant. Said the CC's Rogers, "Legislators are looking at us with a very keen eye because they know we've reached a point where we can deliver votes. We can turn our people out, educated on the issues. And that scares you know what out of 'em."

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