It was just one year ago that Ralph Reed announced the formation of his Faith and Freedom Coalition, a more hip, more strident "21st Century version of the Christian Coalition on steroids, married with MoveOn.org, with a sprinkling of the NRA."
And slowly Reed has been working to build it into a brand new right-wing powerhouse, teaming up with leaders like Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee and Michele Bachmann and Richard Land and Rick Santorum while setting up affiliates in several states in order to train "Tea Partiers, home schoolers and other conservatives to give them the tools they need to identify, educate and turn out conservative voters in their area."
When Reed decided not to run for Congress earlier this year, he explained that it was because he believes that "electing 50 to 100 men and women of character and conservative beliefs to Congress and statewide office over the next two election cycles is a more efficacious way to advance the conservative agenda than seeking public office myself in 2010."
It is becoming increasingly clear that Reed is intent on recovering whatever influence and prestige he may have lost due to this close ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff [PDF] by turning his Faith and Freedom Coalition into a right-wing powerhouse and recapturing his glory days with the Christian Coalition ...and that is why the FFC will be hosting its very own right-wing conference in Washington DC this fall:
Your Faith & Freedom Coalition is growing by leaps and bounds. We now have more than 300,000 members within 50 states. We have state affiliates up and running in 20 states despite the fact that we have been in operation for only six months. And, just this last week we helped elect conservatives in New Jersey and California who are going to stand up to the liberal agenda. Conservatives across the country recognize that only a grassroots organization like FFC can harness the anti-Obama sentiment boiling in our country and channel it to stop this dangerous administration.
I’d like to invite you today to our first ever Citizen Action Leadership Summit being held in Washington, DC September 9-11 at the famed Mayflower Hotel. We’ll be bringing together activists, donors and famous conservative speakers for three days of training, networking and strategy sessions. We’ve invited a who’s who of special guest speakers, which includes:
Sarah Palin
Newt Gingrich
Karl Rove
Jeb Bush
And many others.
Please visit our website today to make reservations for this historic conservative gathering.
Interestingly, this Citizen Action Leadership Summit is being just one week before the Values Voter Summit, the annual gathering of social conservatives hosted by FRC, Focus on the Family, American Family Association, American Values and others.
