mycalicocat

I have had two truly interesting telephone.apologies in my life -- one, as some of you may have heard before, from Jeff Foxworthy, and the other, which took place this morning, from Ralph Reed.

Yes, Ralph Reed as in Christian Coalition, Indian Casinos and Jack Abramoff.

This morning about 10, Ralph called me at work to apologize, but I will have to start at the beginning.

On Saturday morning, having been informed through several sources that Ralph Reed was going to have a big Grassroots Victory Campaign Event at Middle Georgia Technical College, I got my camera and notebook and went. I have covered many, many political events, both Republican and Democrat and going was no big deal.

When I got there the roads leading up to the auditorium were lined with hundreds of signs and balloons. Lots of razzle dazzle. At the doorway there were several young people in Ralph Reed t-shirts, including one who was a dead ringer for the new Ken doll, and looked about 19. He spotted my notebook and camera, and accosted me with a huge smile and a firm handshake, wanting to know who I was. So I told him and he told me that he couldn't let me go in because it wasn't open to media.

I am no spring chicken and so I said, "Honey, we don't do things that way down here. You can't have a secret meeting in a public building." (This is probably not true, but I'm pretty good at dealing with Ken dolls, because they know zero about anything, but also, I was on very familiar turf, and it was sort of like being told by Mickey Mouse that I couldn't go intoPerry City Hall .)

He said very defensively, "The public is invited, but the meeting closed to the media," which made me laugh. I pointed out that I was a member of the public and asked if could have one of the handouts they were handing out, and he said NO, and then he told me that the AJC would have loved to come to this meeting, but it was closed to the public, and I said, "That's ridiculous," and then he said something about, "I'll trust you if you'll trust me" and I just said, "Heyyy, it's okayyyy," in a soothing voiceand went on in to the auditorium where Ralphie was speaking. What were they going to do to a 67 year old woman walking into an auditorium? Call the sheriff?

Ralph is, of course, a pretty good speaker, with lots of slogans and little jokes, and his campaign workers (not so many for a statewide Grassroots Victory thing) were clapping happily. I only recognized three from Houston County, and saw no elected officials.

I took notes and took pictures while he talked about the "dominant media," and explained about getting talking points from his website in case the subject of Abramoff came up. ("I stopped a casino and protected families!") After a while I looked back and saw Tracy McAllister, who is editor of the Buyer's Connection, and a devoted Republican sitting a few seats behind me. I figured that they had given up bar-the-media stuff after I just went in anyway, but then a real grownup in a suit came up and asked Tracy to leave.

Meantime, Ralph turned the gathering over to his strategists, and I followed him out and dominantly told him I wanted to get some photos of him with local people. This turned to be sort of a problem, not because he refused, but because he is a Look at the Camera and Smile Guy, and does not appear to be fully cognizant of the existence of other people when in close proximity to them. I got the impression that he is much more at ease "on stage" than one-on-one. I could have asked him some questions like "Why do you want to be lt. gov?" or "What's Jack Abramoff really like?" but I felt kind of sorry for him.

Then, just as all the people who had presumably come from all over the state were about to leave the auditorium and have barbecue together and maybe shmooze with their "I'll be your go-to guy in Atlanta" candidate, Ralphie bolted and ran, got in a van with somebody and was gone.

Tracy was much angrier than I was because (1) he had donated to Reed's campaign, (2) he had called to reserve the barbecue lunch, and (3) he had asked if he could have a t-shirt and was told NO.

Anyway, I wrote my story (which was great fun) and forgot about it until this morning when I got the call.

"Charlotte? This is Ralph Reed."

He was not apologizing for having a closed meeting, but for the fact that there was a "mixup in communications with the local party people" and I found out about the meeting and came when I wasn't supposed to.

I assured him that it wasn't a problem at all, because I had just gone on in.

I may vote in the Republican primary so I can vote against Ralph.