AND A BABY-FACED CONSULTANT SHALL LEAD THEM

By Laurence I. Barrett

When one of his fans complimented Ralph Reed by calling him the Christian Lee Atwater, she meant that he combined conservative morality with electoral smarts. But Atwater is gone, and other prominent Republican kingmakers of the Reagan-Bush era--James Baker, Ed Rollins, Charles Black--are out to pasture. To Reed, who last week announced his resignation as executive director of the Christian Coalition, this adds up to what he describes as a "strategic void." The 35-year-old Christian operator is not forsaking God for Mammon, but is seeking to fill that vacuum and lead the religious right to the promised land of real electoral power. Yes, Reed built the coalition into a prominent faction within the party, but as a nonprofit advocacy group, it was barred from out-of-the-closet electioneering. It also proved frustratingly ineffective in influencing postelection governance. Reed's ambitious corrective: while keeping a seat on the Christian Coalition's board, he will launch a political consulting firm, Century Strategies, that will bring forth candidates who adhere to the movement's principles and also have wider appeal to the general electorate. "We have enjoyed enormous success in the arena of issue politics," he told TIME. "In order to take that forward to its logical conclusion, we have to have the same measure of success in winning elections." Forget Lee Atwater; Reed wants to be the prophet of the next great Republican awakening in 1998 and 2000.

--By Laurence I. Barrett