Remember Ralph Reed?

The once chair of The Christian Coalition? Yeah, him. Well, in a little noticed news item this morning, Reed announced what had long been rumored, that he would seek the office of Lieutenant Governor of Georgia next year. Reed, if he's slipped off your radar screen for the last several years, is currently the chair of the Georgia state Republican Party.

Some of you might find this reference, and Reed, amusing. You might think it's just another example of those silly right wing Christian nuts, again, going and gettin' involved in matters that are beyond their expertise, something that will only make them and himself out to be fools.

I'm here to say that you should be concerned. Very concerned. You may not like Bush, what, with all the references to his supposed "faith" (It's practically an obstacle course to wade through all the fawning books about Bush and his "faith" when I'm at my local Christian bookstore--where much of the other material there is actually very good) and his insufferable and pandering claim in 2000 that Jesus was his favorite "political philospher", but the reality is that about most things political and most things Christian, dubya is about as connected and concerned as a wad of phlegm. Reed, on the other hand, really means that stuff about "morals" and "Christian Nation". Reed might have some dirty fingers in the financial world, too, and we might think his Christian views hypocritical, but his intentions about remaking America into his and his followers image of a Christian theocracy are real enough.

And Reed is very disarming on television. He appears sane, level headed, good natured, and intelligent (which he is).

And it won't take long for him to merge from state office to the national stage.

So don't say I didn't warn you.

This is why Democrats need to address head-on the ideology permeating beneath the cover of the Christian Nation movement (which consists of most Southern Baptists, independent megachurches, radical evangelicals, and television evangelists) and not wait until someone like Reed shows up, and its too late.