Republican political stars woo waning coalition of Christian conservatives

The Washington Times ^ | June 16, 2013 | Ralph Z. Hallow

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Ralph Reed’s now annual Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington last week drew a surprisingly small audience of mostly Protestant evangelical political activists — but still attracted a bevy of Republican political stars.

The audience of fewer than 400 was a fraction of the thousands who once thronged Pat Robertson’s annual Christian Coalition “Road to the White House” when it reigned as the premier event for rallying religious conservatives in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Mr. Reed is a political consultant, one-time candidate for lieutenant governor of Georgia and born-again Christian. Mr. Robertson, who was honored at an FFC banquet Friday evening, has international renown, in large part because of his long-running syndicated TV show, “The 700 Club,” where comments he has made over the years have been castigated by some fellow evangelicals.

He won the fame and the notoriety that Mr. Reed never came close to achieving.

In 1976, Mr. Robertson predicted that the world would end no later than November 1982, which turned out to be the second year of President Reagan’s first administration. He has linked destructive hurricanes to God’s displeasure with the acceptance of homosexuality in America.....

[2ndDivisionVet]

Chief political writer Ralph Z. Hallow served on the Chicago Tribune, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Washington Times editorial boards, was Ford Foundation Fellow in Urban Journalism at Northwestern University, resident at Columbia University Editorial-Page Editors Seminar and has filed from Berlin, Bonn, London, Paris, Geneva, Vienna, Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Belgrade, Bucharest, Panama and Guatemala.

[Norm Lenhart]

Wonder if the lack of attendance had anything to do with a few of the speakers being liberals and no one trusting the GOP...

[who_would_fardels_bear]

I wonder if it had anything to do with Ralph Reed begin human scum.

[Norm Lenhart]

Oh no! Not Ralph! /s

[GeronL]

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