Word: reede
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...week before the primary, as his campaign's internal polls showed the race a dead heat and a published survey gave him a 4-point lead, Reed was assuring friends he would pull out a victory by doing what he had always done better than anyone else: turn out the vote by pinpointing with extreme efficiency the religious conservatives. "I do guerrilla warfare," Reed once boasted to a reporter, describing how he ambushed his enemies as a political operative. "I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body...
...considering the collapse of Ralph Reed's political dreams, it's tempting to conjure up biblical parables about Jesus instructing his followers in humility by suggesting they go "sit in the lowest place"--or of pride going before a fall. Reed was the preternaturally boyish spear carrier for the religious right, the brash Evangelical who transformed the Christian Coalition into a populist power center, then helped usher Republicans into control of Congress and George W. Bush into the presidency. The next step was launching his own political career in his native Georgia: Reed would be elected Lieutenant Governor this November...
Instead, there was Reed, just 45 but with crow's-feet carved gently into his temples, offering a meager group of supporters a curt concession speech in a hotel ballroom in Buckhead last week. He had lost the primary to a little-known state senator named Casey Cagle in a 12-point landslide, Reed's once invincible lead in the polls and fund raising eroded by a year of steady revelations about his ties to the convicted former G.O.P. superlobbyist Jack Abramoff. In the political vernacular that Reed loves to employ, he was waxed...
...proud of the campaign we ran," Reed, weary but ever positive, told TIME. "I'm glad we did it." He didn't want to talk about why he lost, but those who know him say he blames the media--particularly the Atlanta Journal-Constitution--for their extensive coverage of his business ties to Abramoff, his friend from their days running the College Republicans in the early 1980s. For a high-profile religious conservative like Reed, the stories of being paid millions by one Indian tribe to run a religious-based antigambling campaign to prevent another tribe from opening a rival...
...When he conceded defeat, Reed addressed about 100 faithful for only five minutes, and quickly left the hotel ballroom, noting that Election Day was also his 19th wedding anniversary and striking a chord for party unity. "Job number one is to work for Governor [Sonny] Perdue's re-election..." Undaunted by his defeat, Reed still had the audacity to trumpet the same signature issue that had been his undoing. "It was a positive campaign about the issues; about fiscal responsibility, about improving our schools through charter and choice, and about strengthening our values... Stay in the fight, don't retreat...