Posted on 09/18/2005 4:40:46 PM PDT by areafiftyone
Grass-roots religious group now based in S.C. has lost leadership, influence
Rocked by financial debt, lawsuits and the loss of experienced political leaders, the Christian Coalition has become a pale imitation of its once-powerful self.
Some say the group — now based in Charleston and headed by a South Carolinian — is on life support, having been eclipsed by higher-profile, better-funded groups such as Focus on the Family.
“The coalition as we knew it doesn’t exist,” says Lois Eargle, former chairwoman of the Horry County Christian Coalition.
The 16-year-old organization once was a political juggernaut. But it has been in steady decline since it lost one of its most effective national leaders, executive director Ralph Reed. Reed left in 1997 to form his own political consulting firm in Atlanta.
“He was a great media figure, able to convey his particular message,” says Corwin Smidt, professor of political science at Calvin College, a Christian liberal arts school in Michigan. “But he was also a very bright young man and was able to articulate and make arguments effectively on behalf of the coalition.
“Today, the coalition doesn’t have anyone of that caliber. Once Reed left, the organization never recovered.”
During Reed’s tenure, the politically conservative coalition began distributing millions of voter guides containing candidates’ records on hot-button issues such as abortion and gay rights.
In 1994 alone, the group mailed 30 million postcards opposing President Clinton’s sweeping health-care proposal and made more than 20,000 phone calls to urge support for the balanced budget amendment — two issues that helped Republicans win control of Congress that year.
That was the coalition’s heyday.
Today, the organization founded in 1989 by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson has fallen on hard times. It has gone through two executive directors, seen its revenues drop dramatically, and watched its clout and influence wane.
In 1999, Roberta Combs, who had headed the coalition’s South Carolina chapter, took over as national executive director and began to run the show.
Her tenure has been marked by internal strife, which some observers say was a result of her management style. Combs fired, demoted or drove away much of the coalition’s seasoned political staff, critics say.
Black staffers filed a $39 million racial discrimination suit against the coalition, alleging they were forced to use a separate entrance at its headquarters. The suit was settled with an out-of-court payment of some $300,000 to the employees.
Reed saw the impending financial problems and staff conflicts and quickly left a “sinking ship,” says Furman University political scientist Jim Guth, a nationally recognized scholar on the Christian Right movement. “Reed’s departure was the final nail in the coalition’s coffin.”
FROM POWERHOUSE TO AFTERTHOUGHT
Today, the cash-strapped group faces a host of problems, not the least of which is its inability to pay its bills.
Most recently, on June 2, Pitney Bowes filed a lawsuit against the Christian Coalition for $13,649 in unpaid postage. The issue was settled out of court, says Pitney Bowes attorney Robert Bernstein of Charleston. The coalition now is making monthly payments to help erase the debt.
The coalition, once a powerful national voice for traditional family values, has moved its headquarters to Charleston where Combs spends most of her time.
The group also maintains a small operation in Washington that has a full-time staff of 10. In 1994, when the coalition was at its peak, its headquarters employed as many as 25 full-time paid staffers.
Combs denies the coalition is in trouble. But she acknowledges money has been harder to come by since Robertson stepped down as coalition president in February 2002 and turned control over to her.
“It hurt fund-raising,” she says of Robertson’s departure. “There’s never enough money.”
The coalition is looking for a media spokesman — someone of Reed’s caliber — to be a talking head on the television news shows and to put the organization back on the map.
“We have not had a media spokesman for a good while now,” says Drew McKissick, a Columbia-based political consultant and coalition activist. “You’ve got to show the flag these days. It makes a big difference in people’s perception. We need to boost our profile so folks know we exist.”
Horry’s Eargle thinks that’s a waste of time.
“I don’t see anyone stepping up to the plate that could revitalize the coalition,” she says.
In many ways, the coalition has been replaced by organization’s like James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council in Washington, says University of Toledo professor John Green.
Both of those groups were singled out when “Christian conservatives” were credited with pushing President Bush over the top in his 2004 re-election bid. The Christian Coalition was barely an afterthought in the presidential race.
‘DON’T COUNT US OUT’
Still, the group wields influence in a handful of states — Iowa, Alabama, Texas, Michigan and Florida.
But that’s about it, Green says.
The coalition calls itself America’s largest Christian grass-roots organization with more than 2 million supporters.
But former members, like Eargle, feel the coalition has outlived its usefulness.
“The Christian Coalition did a wonderful job at its time,” Eargle says. “It did a good job in getting grass-roots people involved. Maybe it has served its time.”
This begs the larger question: Can the one-time political behemoth survive at all?
Combs says it will.
“All organizations have their ups and downs, and there are seasons. The Christian Coalition will always be out there. Don’t count us out.”
This is a problem: "Black staffers filed a $39 million racial discrimination suit against the coalition, alleging they were forced to use a separate entrance at its headquarters. The suit was settled with an out-of-court payment of some $300,000 to the employees."
Why would any political organization not fight a charge like that TO THE DEATH? When people settle lawsuits, particularly lawsuits of that nature, it is a tacit admission of danger of conviction. There are times when you fight. An employee's sexual harassment suit, maybe you don't fight. But an allegation that blacks, in a Southern institution, are treated like Jim Crow - that is so mortal to credibility that it is INSANE to settle the suit.
You fight it to the death.
They didn't.
And that is dreadfully suspicious, like Michael Jackson settling with children.
Speaking as a non-player, I would say that the coalition of those who believe in religion is stronger than ever. Twenty years ago, the Catholics and religious Jews tended to vote Democratic, which is certainly not true today.
The Democrats, by driving all religious believers out of their party, have turned a narrowly sectarian political group into a broad political front.
The Christian Coalition is fading because it became about making Ralph Reed look smart and pleasing GOP leaders rather than advancing the moral issues.
The coalition failed to meet the challenge repeatedly, and it committed suicide when it backed Bob Dole.
We don't need it. Christians now have the internet to talk to each other, and they can form their own coalitions, which they have done, basically, in the past three elections through a whole variety of organizations, including FR. Not all Freepers are Christians, but this has been a very useful meeting place to talk things over.
One of two things happened with this state chapter that was sued for "racial discrimination."
One possibility is that they treated these employees as they claimed. The other is that they were unjustly sued, in which case, the Coalition can be blamed for hiring people who had no real loyalty. Either way, very stupid.
I suspect the pool of top-level, politically committed talent among religious-right folks is not very deep. I would be loved to proven wrong. But in any case, many among the religious right are congenitally uncomfortable with politics, which makes it hard for them even to develop a sophisticated understanding of it, let alone to enjoy it. Sadly, "fading" is probably exactly what we can expect. The religious right's enemies have far more power, despite their far fewer numbers, than the religious right has in America. There is no prospect whatsoever of that changing in the near future. At which point, the movement will have few serious workers or leaders left -- only those who love politics or have developed an unquenchable political anger, which probably isn't many people.
Therefore, after a few more years of frustration, there may well be a complete collapse of the political religious right into a network of bunkered-down home schoolers who do nothing but pray, gripe, work at soup kitchens, and picket abortion clinics.
Not exactly the Spirit of '76.
There are several important considerations: First, the Christian Coalition has far more debt then has even been reported, including court judgemnts that may soon result in their offices in South Carolina being seized and the contents sold at judicial auction, and as a pending trial in Texas for $87,000, huge unpaid attorneys fees (that were totally unnecessary and caused by the arrogance and stubbornness of Roberta Combs), and other unreported debts.
However, the more significant issue is the lack of income. The Christian Coalition has no project, no reason for existing, no way of producing further income. Any likely project (such as the pledge of allegiance) is eclipsed by better-organized, more credible, more effective groups like the American Center for Law & Justice. Why would anyone give money to the Christian Coalition when they could give it to ACLJ instead? Money given to the Christian Coalition might buy multi-millionaire Roberta Combs some fancy new shoes, expensive artwork, and expensive furniture. But money given to Jay Sekulow at ACLJ would result in enemies of God getting whacked in court very decisively, leaving anti-God liberals stinging for years to come.
So you can't just look at the debts. You have to look at the failure of Roberta Combs to come up with any reason for the Christian Coalition to continue to exist. That is a failure of management. It is the arrogance of a bad manager that wants to simply spend the money without
worrying about what will generate money next year and the year after that.
Chief Senate Lobbyist Mr. Tracy Ammons developed a number of very attractive money-making plans for the Christian
Coalition, which Roberta Combs destroyed. Mr. Ammons arranged to have a family-friendly internet service Freedom ISP pay royalties to the Christian Coalition on subscriptions to internet service that filtered out porn,etc. But the plan required Roberta Combs to share the money with her own State Chapters to motivate them to go out and get the subscriptions. Roberta Combs was too selfish and arrogant to share the royalties with her own State chapters to allow this plan to proceed.
Second, the biggest problem is that the Christian Coalition has burned their bridges with the fund-raising community. Roberta Combs bankrupted their fund-raiser Interact Response Communications in the middle of a highly-successful fund-raising campaign. Prospecting creates a temporary increase in debt, as an organiation builds a huge mailing list, which then pays off in huge proceeds later. Roberta Combs, being arrogant and uninformed as a political leader, panicked and pulled the plug on the campaign while debts were mounting, but before the campaign could start paying off according to the plan and universal experience of other political organizations. The result was that Interact came crashing down, everyone sued, Interact had to declare bankruptcy, and now NO ONE TRUSTS ROBERTA COMBS IN THE FUNDRAISING COMMUNITY.
When you can no longer get credit from fundraising vendors (printers, mailing houses, caging operations, etc.) you are dead as a political organization. When fundraisers won't touch you any more, there is no future.
So the beginning of the end was, again, Roberta Combs' bad management in which she destroyed Interact Response Communications by bad decisions about their fundraising campaign.
Now, no one will work with them, because no one wants to get screwed and end up holding the bag full of bills.
Third, Roberta Combs' participation in a bittery and nasty divorce was totally unnecessary. Assuming you don't object to Roberta's daughter stiking Mr. Tracy Ammons in their Virginia home before a witness and deserting him back to South Carolina, couldn't Christians divorce without attempting total destruction? And the resources of the Christian Coalition should not have been misappropriated for the personal vendettas of the Combs family.
Thanks for the informative post.
It sounds like whoever gave Ms. Combs her position has some explaining to do.
I don't care if this particular organization survives -- as long as someone takes up the slack and puts out Voter Guides, in similar numbers, to the same constituency at election time. That was CC's real value as far as I was concerned.
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