MOST GEORGIA REPUBLICAN STATE SENATORS WANT RALPH REED TO WITHDRAW SO HIS CORRUPTION PROBLEMS DON'T SINK THE WHOLE GOP TICKET

In Georgia the presiding officer of the State Senate is the Lieutenant Governor and this year the race for that office has been a big deal, primarily because of the candidacy of former Georgia Republican Party State Chairman and Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed. But the interest in Reed isn't because of his two former jobs per se but because how he peddled the influence he gained from holding them. And that Little Ralphie did with his pal indicted/convicted Republican sleaze-master Jack Abramoff. Abramoff admitted paying Lil' Ralphie over $4 million in order to get him to bamboozle dumb-as-doornails right-wing "Christian" voters to help with the fleecing of American Indian tribes in a pointless series of casino turf battles-- pointless except for the huge payments extracted from the Indians for Abramoff, Reed and their GOP circle. Abramoff and his partner Michael Scanlon (an ex-DeLay aide who has also plead guilty) have no respect for Christianity-- the real thing with Jesus, not the political hate-based crap purported to be Christianity by the likes of Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, George Bush and Fred Phelps-- and even referred to the suckers who Reed was bringing into their scheme as "the wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees. Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

But Ralph decided to tough it out and keep running-- it is Georgia we're talking about here, not exactly a bastion of clean government or even an aware, educated electorate. Yesterday, however, the biggest newspaper in the state, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, reported that the overwhelming majority of the Republicans in the State Senate signed a letter to Reed asking him to withdraw from the race for the good of the Party and the state.

"Twenty-one Republican state senators on Friday called for Ralph Reed to withdraw from the contest for lieutenant governor, declaring that his ties to Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff could jeopardize the re-election of Gov. Sonny Perdue and the rest of the GOP ticket. 'For the good of the Republican Party, for the good of Georgia, we encourage Ralph Reed to withdraw from this race,' stated the petition signed by the senators, all of whom support Reed's GOP rival, state Sen. Casey Cagle of Gainesville."

Reed told the senators they could kiss his ass and Reed's far right lunatic campaign manager, Jared Thomas, accused the senators of short-circuiting the party process. The newspaper report points out that "an open, written call for the departure of an established, well-funded candidate from the GOP primary by nearly two-thirds of the Senate Republican caucus is unprecedented— and reflects growing worries within GOP ranks about the local impact of an expanding corruption scandal in Washington."

One of the first senators to sign, Chip Pearson of Dawsonville, explained that "We've got our own politics in Georgia we have to deal with on a daily basis. "We don't need to be dealing with national politics in Georgia races." [Editor's note: By "national politics," State Senator Pearson meant the Republican culture of corruption and sleaze that has enveloped Washington and is flushing down the toilet the careers of prominent Republicrooks like Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Jerry Lewis, Bob Ney, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, John Doolittle, Roy Blunt, Conrad Burns... and, of course, Little Ralphie Reed.]