At the age of 33, Ralph Reed made the cover of Time Magazine. He was nationally renowned for his grass-roots organizing and political strategy. Fifteen years later, Reed continues to play an active role in national campaigns.
Ralph Reed discussed the elements of his new book, The Confirmation, on the Oct. 21 edition of The 700 Club. Click play to watch the interview.
Political pundits became enamored with the concept of "values voters" in the 2004 election. However, in the early 1990s, Reed had spotted their potential and had already figured out how to engage them politically.
Tour de Force
In 1989, Pat Robertson asked Reed, a former national leader of the College Republicans, to head the Christian Coalition. Reed explained his vision at the time: "If you can unite the pro-family Roman Catholic and the evangelicals at the ballot box you see victory from one end of the country to the other," he said.
Many credit Reed's political strategy as the key to helping Republicans take over Congress in 1994. In 1995, at perhaps the height of his power, Time Magazine again featured Reed on its cover with the title "The Right Hand of God."
Reed left the coalition in 1997 and continues to be a prominent advisor to many national campaigns.
In 2006, he decided to run for the job of Georgia's lieutenant governor. But Reed's ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff clouded his primary hopes, and he lost to conservative state senator Casey Cagle.
In 2008, Reed took his political expertise to a new arena. He wrote the political thriller Dark Horse.
New Book
Reed's new book The Confirmation is a fictional political thriller that parallels several current issues facing Washington today.
In the novel, newly elected U.S. president Bob Long is weighing reports of nuclear weapons in Iran when he learns Justice Peter Corbin Franklin, 86-year-old liberal conscience of the Supreme Court, has suffered a massive stroke. With pressing same-sex marriage and abortion laws as well as a huge antitrust case on the court's docket, the door is open for Long to appoint a conservative replacement, repaying the 21 million evangelicals who voted for him.
However, Long finds it won't be that easy. He suffers a series of political missteps while his court nominee, Marco Diaz, endures vicious character accusations in the media for his religious beliefs and rumors of a tragic past.
Meanwhile, terrorists in Iran have hijacked more nuclear materials and are threatening to bomb a major city if the U.S. or Israel attacks. Chaos reigns in the nation's capital.