In recent years, many a public figure — count Sen. Jim Webb, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and Lynne Cheney among them — have had steamy or otherwise sexually graphic scenes from their novels come back to haunt them.
Longtime Christian conservative activist Ralph Reed assures us that should he ever assume public office, he won’t be among them, even though he’s now released his first novel, “Dark Horse.”
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The book “has everything — power, greed, betrayal,” he told us. “But I’m a Christian author. It’s not G-rated but it’s PG-rated. There’s no explicit sex or profanity.”
Oh well. Score one for discretion.
Reed has penned three nonfiction titles — a task he said was harder than fiction “because you have to do so much research and fact checking.”
He said although he had to go through four drafts, the novel “just kind of poured out” once he had the “characters and the basic plot outline.”
And those he had covered 32 years ago, when he was just 15.
He explained that he wrote the first chapter in 1976, inspired by Eugene McCarthy’s independent bid against Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, then shelved it for three decades. He recalls saying at the time, “I’m 15 years old, what am I talking about? I’ve never even worked on a campaign.”
Nevertheless, he was prescient enough to include in the plot a bitter fight over the Democratic nomination and a character who would be the first African-American president.
“I can’t claim any powers of clairvoyance,” he insisted, regarding similarities to 2008.
But enough about fictitious politics. What about the real thing?
“I thought what everybody thought — that if Hillary Clinton was breathing, she’d be the Democratic nominee,” he told us.
He said John McCain “still has a little work to do” in order to court religious conservatives, but he’s not far from where President Bush stood at this stage in 2004.
And he said the religious right has “matured,” but now its biggest task is to reinvigorate the grass roots. “Historically they’ve led and elected officials have followed,” he said. “Since the Contract with America, we looked to Newt Gingrich and then to Bush to lead. [The movement] needs to be led from the grass roots.”
