The Christian Coalition is threatened with extinction. What could be the reason? Evil satanic atheist secularist humanist Hollywood types, turning public opinion against them? No, just the march of time and a boatload of debt.

The once-mighty Christian Coalition, founded 17 years ago by the Rev. Pat Robertson as the political fundraising and lobbying engine of the Christian right, is more than $2 million in debt, beset by creditors' lawsuits and struggling to hold on to some of its state chapters.

[...] "The credibility is just not there like it once was," said Stephen L. Scheffler, president of the [break-away] Iowa affiliate since 2000. "The budget has shrunk from $26 million to $1 million. There's a trail of debt. . . . We believe, our board believes, any Christian organization has an obligation to pay its debts in a timely fashion."

At its peak a decade ago, the Christian Coalition deployed a dozen lobbyists on Capitol Hill. Today, it has a single Washington employee who works out of his home. Its phone number with a 202 area code is automatically forwarded to a small office in Charleston, S.C.

As to the underlying reason? Too much dependence on leaders (Pat Robertson and Rex Reed) who have since moved on, if not without a certain degree of notariety; lots of accrued debt (though it's down from $4MM in the hole in 2001); the general "success" of conservative politics since the "dark days" of the Clinton presidency; and disputes over how well the CC served the core values of its constituency, how much its spokesmen strayed from orthodoxy and unifying, vs. dividing, conservative Christian themes.

Despite Robertson's denials, fellow conservative Christians viewed his 2001 CNN interview [supporting China's one child policy] as a defense of forced abortions. "The Christian Coalition was already on life support. Robertson's remarks probably mean its demise," former Christian Coalition lobbyist Marshall Wittmann predicted at the time.

In 2003, [Robertson's successor] Roberta Combs defied conservative orthodoxy when she campaigned in Alabama in support of a state tax increase. Leaders of the Christian Coalition's Alabama chapter said the national organization had "dramatically departed from a 13-year traditional core values platform."

Combs also drew charges of nepotism by hiring her daughter and son-in-law, Tracy E. Ammons, a schoolteacher who became a $6,000-a-month Senate lobbyist. When the couple divorced two years ago, he claimed that the Christian Coalition owed him $130,000 in unpaid salary.

Other, smaller organizations have arisen to fill the vacuum, but they don't have the clout the CC once yielded.

Which is, in my opinion, a good thing.

(via Les)

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