CONYERS’ COALITION
You can’t blame Rep. John Conyers and the
Democrats for not keeping up with Republican politics, but it
appears they are more out of touch with reality than many people
thought.
On Tuesday Conyers and his staff are doing a favor for their
friends at MoveOn.org by holding a hearing on “Net Neutrality,” a
catchy word for government regulation of the Internet. Along with
ending the war in Iraq, it is one of the top political issues for
MoveOn and its satellite organizations.
Also set to testify: an organization called the “Christian
Coalition.” But it isn’t the Christian Coalition that most
conservatives know from the 1980s or even the early 1990s. That
organization is no more, and effectively died about a decade ago
with the emergence of more prominent social conservative groups
like Focus on the Family.
About 18 months ago, the national umbrella organization for what
was the Christian Coalition accepted hundreds of thousands of
dollars from backers of MoveOn.org to serve as the “conservative
voice” in their campaign for regulation of the Internet.
And as a result of that scandal, a number of state “Christian
Coalition” groups quit the national organization, renaming
themselves and serving autonomously.
“It was embarrassing that they sold themselves for 30 pieces of
silver on an issue that free marketers were fighting against,” says
a former national board member of the Christian Coalition. “They
aren’t the group the Democrats and MoveOn make them out to be. They
don’t speak for Republicans or anyone else.”
Sources at the RNC say that the national organization has not
been active in this election cycle on any level, anywhere in the
country.
So why have the group testify? According to a senior House
Judiciary Committee staffer, an initial plan had a member of MoveOn
or its more clean-cut doppelganger, Free Press, testifying, but the
Christian Coalition was suggested by MoveOn as a more politically
helpful move.
CATHOLIC BACKREACH
As the White House and Republican National Committee officials
begin to transition their political resources to help Sen.
John McCain’s run for the presidency, both are
looking at how best to support McCain’s campaign. As we reported
last week, one focus is rebuilding Catholic outreach. According to
RNC insiders, that has put the focus on current RNC outreach
co-director John A. Kelly (he was appointed to the
post, along with Leonard Leo, of the Federalist
Society, by then-RNC director Ken Mehlman).
Since Kelly took over the job, however, the Republican Party has
seen its support among Catholics nosedive, and Kelly’s own
checkered past is raising questions about the RNC’s seriousness of
rebuilding Catholic outreach.
Before becoming head of Catholic outreach, Kelly was better
known as the John A. Kelly who back in the early 1980s had served
as a low-level RNC aide who was removed from that job, according to
the New York Times, for passing himself off as a White
House employee of the then newly installed Reagan
Administration.
Kelly was moved over to another job at the RNC, working on a
ballot security task force for the 1981 New Jersey governor’s race
that saw Tom Kean defeat James
Florio. That outcome was tainted by Democrat charges that
the RNC-backed task force intimidated voters in inner-city areas; a
lawsuit was filed against the RNC, and the national party later
signed a pledge in federal court promising not to allow such
intimidation of Democrat voters again.
Kelly was suspended from his duties by the RNC after questions
were raised about his resume, and whether he’d actually worked as a
police officer, attended or graduated from Fordham Law School, or
attended Notre Dame (he attended Holy Cross Junior College in South
Bend, Indiana, graduating in 1972). He later resigned his RNC
post.
His biography used for public appearances today says, “In the
past, Kelly has been the White House Liaison to the Republican
National Committee for political and personnel issues, a political
aide to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.”
“Everyone deserves a second chance, but Catholic outreach is a
disaster right now,” says a former senior Reagan Administration
official who dealt with Kelly during his time at the RNC in the
early 1980s. “Two thousand six was just a mess for us and 2008
isn’t looking any better.”
PAYBACK TIME
Senior Democrats in the Senate and at the Democratic National
Committee are girding themselves for what they see as an inevitable
appearance by Sen. Joseph Lieberman at the
Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul this
summer.
Lieberman endorsed Sen. John McCain and has
campaigned with the GOP Presidential nominee several times.
Lieberman caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate, though he is
an independent.
“If he were to appear at the Republican convention, it would
essentially be over between him and the Democrats, though we pretty
much did that to him when our leadership supported Ned
Lamont during the primary back in 2006,” says a senior
Democrat leadership aide in the Senate. “It’s too bad, because both
Hillary and Barack could’ve used him in their campaigns.”
