Ralph Reed

By 22 he had already run a national political organisation and been thrown off a college newspaper. Reed was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, the son of a Navy ophthalmologist, and moved constantly as a child, spending most of it in Miami before the family settled in Toccoa, Georgia, in 1976. At the University of Georgia he took six years over a history degree because he spent the time on College Republicans, rising to the national committee, where Jack Abramoff installed him as executive director in 1983. That same year the student paper dismissed him for plagiarism. That September, by his own account, he became a born-again Christian. He finished a doctorate in American history at Emory in 1991.

Pat Robertson's failed 1988 campaign left behind a mailing list. Robertson hired Reed in 1989, at 28, as the Christian Coalition's founding executive director. He turned that list into an apparatus: voter guides distributed through churches, activists trained to work precincts, and by 1995 a claimed 1.7 million members, a figure reporters disputed. The Coalition was credited with the turnout that took the House in 1994. Reed had described his method to a Virginia newspaper in 1991. "I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag."

On June 22, 2006, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs released its final report on Jack Abramoff's lobbying for gaming tribes. The committee found that from 1998 to 2002 Reed was paid 5.3 million dollars, routed through Abramoff's law firm and organisations run by his partner Michael Scanlon, to mobilise conservative Christians against casinos competing with Abramoff's clients. The money moved through intermediaries, among them Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, because, a tribal planner told the committee, Reed did not want to be paid directly by a tribe with gaming interests. It did not accuse him of knowing about Abramoff's illegal conduct. Reed said he had not known the source of the funds. He was never charged with a crime. He lost the Republican primary for lieutenant governor of Georgia 26 days later, 44 percent to Casey Cagle's 56.

He did not leave the business. In May 2009 he incorporated the Faith and Freedom Coalition in Duluth, Georgia, and called it a 21st-century version of the Christian Coalition. Its Road to Majority conference became a required stop for Republican presidential candidates, and in 2023 all 11 declared contenders appeared, with Donald Trump closing the gala. Reed still chairs the group and still runs Century Strategies, the consulting firm he founded in 1997. The verdict on him is unsettled. He is credited with permanently changing how a religious constituency is turned into votes, and criticised for the methods that did it.

Ralph Reed's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• Christian Coalition voter guides other
  Distributed through churches and the core of the coalition's field operation 1990
• Active Faith: How Christians Are Changing the Face of American Politics book
  His case for religious conservatives working inside party politics 1996
• Century Strategies other
  The consulting and public affairs firm he co-founded near Atlanta 1997
• Faith and Freedom Coalition other
  Incorporated in Georgia and described by Reed as a 21st-century Christian Coalition 2009
• Awakening: How America Can Turn From Moral and Economic Destruction Back to Greatness book 2014
• For God and Country: The Christian Case for Trump book 2020

• 1983 aged ~22 Runs the College Republican National Committee at 22 Jack Abramoff appointed him executive director, succeeding Grover Norquist. The same year the University of Georgia student paper dismissed him for plagiarism.
• September 1983 aged 22 Becomes a born-again Christian By his own account he found a church in the phone book and went the next morning.
• 1989 aged ~28 Pat Robertson hires him to run the new Christian Coalition Founding executive director, at 28, of an organisation built on the mailing list from Robertson's 1988 presidential campaign.
• November 8, 1994 aged 33 Republicans take the House and the Coalition is credited with the turnout
• May 15, 1995 aged 33 Appears on the cover of Time as "The Right Hand of God"
• August 1997 aged 36 Resigns from the Christian Coalition He moved to Georgia and co-founded the consulting firm Century Strategies that year.
• June 22, 2006 aged 44 Senate Indian Affairs Committee report details 5.3 million dollars paid to him through intermediaries The money originated with tribal gambling interests represented by Jack Abramoff. Reed said he had not known its source and was never charged.
• July 18, 2006 aged 45 Loses the Republican primary for lieutenant governor of Georgia Casey Cagle took 56 percent of the vote to Reed's 44.
• May 14, 2009 aged 47 Incorporates the Faith and Freedom Coalition He still chairs it.

• Pat Robertson 1930–2023
  Founded the Christian Broadcasting Network and, after a failed 1988 presidential run, the Christian Coalition. hired by
• Jerry Falwell 1933–2007
  Pastor and political organizer who helped make conservative evangelicalism a major Republican constituency. succeeded the movement of
• Billy Graham 1918–2018
  Evangelist whose mass crusades, media reach, and presidential relationships made him a defining figure in modern American Protestantism. earlier generation
• Newt Gingrich b. 1943
  Speaker who engineered the 1994 Republican House majority and the Contract with America agenda. allied with
• Donald Trump b. 1946
  Businessman, media personality, and 45th and 47th president whose populist movement transformed American politics. organised for