Not such a grand old party

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 13:51:00 +0000

In the end, Ralph Reed couldn't even fill a room. None of the boldface names who'd once embraced him were present, nor was there much sign of his diminished fundamentalist base. Tuesday night, less than three hours after the polls closed and with more than half the precincts still unreported, Reed -- deemed an almost unstoppable force when he declared his candidacy for Georgia lieutenant governor -- stood, flanked by his teary-eyed wife, Jo Anne, and four children, to concede defeat before a half-empty ballroom of downcast loyalists and representatives of the hated media.

The setting for Reed's defeat, the posh new Intercontinental Hotel in a tony neighborhood near downtown Atlanta, was itself symbolic. GOP candidates often throw their election-night bashes in the suburbs. Reed's campaign -- conducted by a self-styled political outsider who was, in fact, the ultimate political insider -- was waged on two very different fronts. On one hand, the money poured in from the same national web of Republican donors who had once turned out their pockets for Reed the political consultant's clients. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani stumped for him; the GOP's favorite Democrat, former Sen. Zell Miller, unleashed his famous acid tongue on Reed's behalf; Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus kicked in the bucks to help launch the campaign.

Salon.com > Greg Land

Not such a grand old party