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ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz End Times for the Christian Coalition?On September 19, 2005, Jason Christy, the head of Christy Media (website) and the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Church Report (website), a national news and business journal for pastors and Christian leaders, was named executive director of the Christian Coalition (website) by the organization's president, Roberta Combs. "I am honored and humbled to be chosen by the Christian Coalition's Board of Directors for this key position," Christy said. "It is crucial at this time in our nation for people of faith to engage the culture, and to realize that at the grassroots level they can make a difference." "After the founders left, the Christian Coalition never fully recovered," James L. Guth, an expert on politics and religion at Furman University told the Washington Post. "The dependence on Robertson and Reed was really disastrous." Less than a month later, Christy changed his mind, deciding not to take the position. According to Word News, Christy intimated that it would be difficult to work with the Christian Coalition and continue running his various businesses. Less than a year later, the Coalition's board voted to name Joel Hunter president of the organization. Hunter was/is the senior pastor of the nondenominational Longwood, Florida-based Northland Church, also known as Northland A Church Distributed, and a founder of both the Christian Citizen and the Alliance for the Distributed Church. In late November, however, Hunter stepped down as president-elect (he was to have assumed office on January 1), saying that he had wanted the organization to focus on issues other than abortion and same-sex marriage (such as poverty and environmental protection), but Coalition leaders did not. "I think the board just got scared," said Hunter, the author of "Right Wing, Wrong Bird: Why the Tactics of the Religious Right Won't Fly With Most Conservative Christians." The withdrawal of the media-savvy Christy and the forward-looking Hunter -- albeit for different reasons -- is surely indicative of a once mighty organization going south. However, like Spain's Fascist dictator, Generalísimo Francisco Franco, who was kept alive so that his death would coincide with the anniversary of the death of another well-known fascist leader 39 years earlier, the Christian Coalition's demise is taking a dreadfully long time to play itself out. While Reports of Franco's death made it into the popular culture - It became a recurring item during the satiric Weekend Update segment on the then-new "Saturday Night Live" program - the death of the Christian Coalition probably won't get the same comedic treatment. It should be noted that in its day, the Christian Coalition became the heir and-then-some to the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority. Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition (CC) set the gold standard for Christian conservative grassroots organizing efforts, fundraising ability and lobbying efforts well into the 1990s. At its peak, one of the organization's claims to fame was its highly partisan Voter Guides. In 2000, it distributed over 70 million voter guides in churches all across America, including over 5 million in Spanish (approximately 2 million of which were distributed in Florida alone). In the 2004 election cycle, the group claimed that it distributed around 30 million voter guides, but this time in targeted states and congressional districts, choosing instead to focus its efforts on areas that were more politically competitive. "The once-mighty Christian Coalition founded 17 years ago by the Rev. Pat Robertson as the political fundraising and lobbying engine of the Christian right, is more than $2 million in debt, beset by creditors' lawsuits and struggling to hold on to some of its state chapters," the Washington Post reported in April of this year. "In March, one of its most effective chapters, the Christian Coalition of Iowa, cut ties with the national organization and reincorporated itself as the Iowa Christian Alliance, saying it "found it impossible to continue to carry a name that in any way associated us with this national organization." Stephen L. Scheffler, president of the Iowa affiliate since 2000, said that "The credibility is just not there like it once was. The budget has shrunk from $26 million to $1 million. There's a trail of debt...We believe, our board believes, any Christian organization has an obligation to pay its debts in a timely fashion." In reality, the organization hasn't been the same since Ralph Reed, the organization's baby-faced point man who garnered serious face time on television pushing the organization's agenda, and Robertson, the founder and chief operating officer left the Coalition. "After the founders left, the Christian Coalition never fully recovered," James L. Guth, an expert on politics and religion at Furman University in South Carolina, told the Washington Post's Alan Cooperman and Thomas B. Edsall in April 2006. "The dependence on Robertson and Reed was really disastrous." Reed resigned as the CC's executive director in 1997, leaving to head up his own political consulting firm (Century Strategies), become head of Georgia's Republican Party, and to set the stage for launching his own political career. Earlier this year, unable to slide out from under reports of his close connection to GOP uber-lobbyist, the now-imprisoned Jack Abramoff, Reed was defeated in his bid to become the GOP's candidate for lieutenant governor. Robertson left in 2001 after a CNN interview in which he defended China's one-child policy, a position that horrified fellow Christian conservatives. Robertson's China comment, according to the Washington Post, "was among the most damaging in a series of remarks that have hurt Robertson's standing among evangelical Christians -- and may have hurt the Christian Coalition as well." "The Christian Coalition was already on life support. Robertson's remarks probably mean its demise," said former Christian Coalition lobbyist Marshall Wittmann, who before he was recently hired to be the communications director and spokesman for Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), was a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council and partially funded by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. Roberta Combs, who coordinated Robertson's South Carolina campaign during his run to head the GOP presidential ticket in 1988, replaced him as head of the Christian Coalition five years ago. Claiming that the organization was in horrendous financial straits, Coombs cleaned house and made enemies. "I had to let a lot of staff go, and they all got upset with me because they were close to Ralph [Reed]. Of course they said bad things about me. But we got a lot of that [debt] paid down over time," Combs told the Washington Post. While she may have succeeded in cleaning house and making enemies, one thing she didn't do was straighten out the organization's financials, according to the Washington Post: "IRS records show that the Christian Coalition's red ink has remounted. Its debts exceeded its assets by $983,000 in 2001, $1.3 million in 2002, $2 million in 2003 and $2.28 million at the end of 2004, the most recent year for which it has filed a nonprofit tax return." "Lawsuits for unpaid bills have multiplied. The Christian Coalition's longtime law firm -- Huff, Poole & Mahoney PC of Virginia Beach -- says it is owed $69,729. Global Direct, a fundraising firm in Oklahoma, is suing for $87,000 in expenses. Reese & Sons Inc., a moving company in District Heights, is trying to recover $1,890 for packing up furniture when the Christian Coalition closed its Washington office in 2002." The resignation of Joel Hunter precludes any chance that the Christian Coalition might emerge as a new and forward-looking organization. "My position is, unless we are caring as much for the vulnerable outside the womb as inside the womb, we're not carrying out the full message of Jesus," Hunter said in a late-November telephone interview with the Washington Post. "They [Christian Coalition leaders] began to think this might threaten their base or evaporate some of their support, and they said they just couldn't go there." Although concerned about the organization's precarious financials, his resignation did not stem from that factor: "I got a look at who they owed money to. It's sobering. But with the right leadership and the capability of rebuilding a grass-roots organization, it's not insurmountable. My church budget is $15 million a year...It's not too intimidating for me to think I could have raised that kind of money." According to the newspaper, Roberta Combs, chairman of the coalition's four-member board, "said that Hunter "is still a good friend" but that they agreed during a November 21 conference call that "it would be best for everyone if he did not become president." Combs pointed out that the organization has "been wanting to broaden our agenda for some time. But there's a way to do that. We wanted to survey our supporters first and make sure they're on board on new issues. Joel saw it differently -- he just wanted to go out and do it." Interestingly enough, when Time magazine ran a cover story earlier this year headlined "The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America," not one Christian Coalition spokesperson was amongst them. With Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family, Tony Perkins' Family Research Council, and the Southern Baptist Convention having eclipsed the Coalition in lobbying effectiveness since even before Pat Robertson's leaving the organization, Hunter's ideas represented an opportunity for a new beginning. With Hunter's resignation, it appears that Christian Coalition leaders have soundly rejected changing the way it has been doing business. The organization's long slide from its glory days to relative obscurity will no doubt continue. sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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