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Sunday, September 23, 2012

Presidential politics The Religious Right's Ralph Reed rides again

Posted by Max Brantley on Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 6:53 AM

ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS: Ralph Reed is back working the army.

ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS: Ralph Reed is back working the army.

Here we go again. The New York Times reports that the disgraced lobbyist Ralph Reed is back working on the Religious Right in hopes of pushing Mitt Romney to victory with the bedrock moral appeal — anti-abortion, anti-gay — that has served the Republican Party so well.

The Bushites and Romneyites generally disdain the evangelical voters at a personal level, but are very happy to use them. And Ralph Reed is happy to make a little money serving that pragmatic end. Pounding Obamacare will be part of the message, along with some other carefully targeted messaging looking to move the appeal beyond evangelicals and into the Catholic vote. About targeting:

To identify religious voters most likely to vote Republican, the group used 171 data points.

It acquired megachurch membership lists. It mined public records for holders of hunting or boating licenses, and warranty surveys for people who answered yes to the question “Do you read the Bible?” It determined who had downloaded conservative-themed books, like “Going Rogue” by Sarah Palin, onto their e-readers, and whether those people also drove pickup trucks. It drilled down further, looking for married voters with children, preferably owners of homes worth more than $100,000.

Finally, names that overlapped at least a dozen or so data points were overlaid with voting records to yield a database with the addresses and, in many cases, e-mail addresses and cellphone numbers of the more than 17 million faith-centric registered voters — not just evangelical Protestants but also Mass-attending Catholics. The group is also reaching out to nearly two million more people who have never registered to vote.

Tags: Ralph Reed, Religious Right

        
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Speaking of Ralph Reed, Religious Right

Tuesday topics

May 7, 2013

by Max Brantley

The line is open. Final words: * THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT HAS DESIGNS ON ARKANSAS: Church and State magazine reports on plans by the American Renewal Project, a Religious Right organization, to politically target 12 states including Arkansas in 2014 to "restore America to its Judeo-Christian heritage." /more/
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