The second oldest profession

Bob Davis: The second oldest profession


Alabama election watchers could be forgiven for doing a double-take when watching Ron Sparks amble off the stage as Ralph Reed strides onto a more prominent one.

What’s the connection, you ask?

Sparks is the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for governor who couldn’t ignite the interest of enough voters when pitching a lottery and other forms of gambling.

Reed, the Republican strategist credited with the rise of the Christian Coalition, played a clandestine role in defeating Alabama’s 1999 try to create a state lottery.

As the loser in Tuesday’s election that saw Republican Robert Bentley win the governor’s mansion, Sparks will surely recede from the spotlight. Why Reed is back so soon after scandal is a mystery.

There was Reed on CNN Wednesday, suggesting the Tea Party movement and Christian conservatives were responsible for the slapdown of congressional Democrats. There he was on C-SPAN offering his take on the election, “The socially conservative faith-based vote was the fuel and engine of the biggest midterm victory in our history.”

He was saying much the same 16 years ago.

In that wildly successful Republican midterm victory, Reed was one of the leading lights. In 1994, Reed and the Christian Coalition were mighty foot soldiers who helped deliver the GOP a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. Reed even landed on the cover of Time magazine under the headline, “The Right Hand of God: Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition.”

Flushed with victory, Republicans set out to remake Washington’s culture established over four decades. In order to get Republican cooperation, D.C. lobbyists were expected to freeze out Democrats, a scheme known as the K Street project. The movement’s leaders demanded total victory over Democrats. A permanent Republican majority was forecast.

Then there was trouble. In the late 1990s, the Christian Coalition hit the skids under a close examination of its finances by the IRS.

Reed landed on his feet, however, getting help from friends from their College Republican days. One of the most powerful was Jack Abramoff, a Republican super-lobbyist who benefited handsomely from the K Street project.

Abramoff had found lucrative work lobbying on behalf of Indian casinos in Mississippi and Louisiana. Around this time the Mississippi Choctaw tribe, one of Abramoff’s clients, was casting a wary eye at Alabama’s proposal to start a lottery and allow more gambling at dog tracks. It’s easy enough to see why. If Alabamians could satisfy their itch to gamble at home, why would they travel to a Mississippi casino?

Reed was brought in by Abramoff to rally Alabama’s Christian conservatives against the gambling proposals. Of course, a conservative Christian working on behalf of gamblers looks bad, especially if it’s Reed who had previously said, “gambling is a cancer on the American body politic.”

No problem. The anti-gambling money, more than a million dollars, was laundered through other conservative advocacy groups before making its way to Reed and his Alabama allies.

Of course, putting the kibosh on an Alabama lottery was only the tip of the iceberg for Abramoff, a man who was fond of picking up the tab on lavish trips for U.S. congressmen. In fact, the Hollywood treatment of his scandal — Casino Jack — opens next week with Kevin Spacey in the lead.

Abramoff’s downfall started once the Senate Indian Affairs Committee got wind of some of Abramoff’s fraudulent dealings. Eventually, e-mails were released that connected Reed’s anti-gambling efforts in Alabama to a casino in Mississippi. In 2006, Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud and corruption charges; he’s scheduled to be released from federal prison next month.

No charges were ever filed against Reed. The picture of retirees feeding slot machines near Philadelphia, Miss., and having the freshly laundered quarters landing in the pockets of Reed isn’t very pretty. Trading on people’s sincere religious beliefs never is.

In 2006, he ran for political office in Georgia, but didn’t even get out of the Republican primary in the race for lieutenant governor.

Yet, last Tuesday’s results have seemingly put fresh wind into his sails. He’s back with a new organization, the Faith and Freedom Coalition. And, as mentioned above, he was appearing on CNN’s new primetime program, Parker Spitzer.

If Reed wanted further reassurance that there are second acts in American politics, he needed only look to his right, where Eliot Spitzer sat. Spitzer’s name should ring a bell. He was Democratic governor of New York until it was discovered that he was a client of a prostitution ring, a scandal that seemingly ended his career until he got a show on CNN.