April 26 1999

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The Christian Coalition has announced a massive $21 million fundraising campaign aimed at recruiting a record number of conservatives to vote in the 2000 elections.

The aggressive campaign, called "21 Victory," is the largest voter education effort in the organization's history.

"There has been a lot of talk in the press that conservatives are ready to withdraw from the process we call democracy," says founder Pat Robertson, who recently replaced Don Hodel as the organization's president (CT, April 5, 1999, p. 15). "We at the Christian Coalition are far from quitting. … In fact, we have just begun the fight."

The $21 million campaign will involve "cards, calls, guides, and rides," says Christian Coalition spokes person Molly Clatworthy, referring to postcards, get-out-the-vote phone calls to constituents, voter guides, and rides to the polls. The coalition will also pay for radio commercials, state rallies, and increases in field staff, Clatworthy says.

The coalition expects to distribute an estimated 75 million voter guides in 2000 and aims to recruit 1.5 million grassroots activists to encourage voting, Robertson says. And for the first time, the Christian Coalition will post its voter guides on the Inter net. "We are coupling good old-fashioned shoe-leather politics and the latest technology with the hope of driving millions of voters to the polls," says executive director Randy Tate. The coalition is asking 50,000 individuals to contribute $20 a month for the next 21 months to underwrite campaign costs. The group mailed more than half a million fund raising letters to constituents in early March.