Cagle Exorcises

I can never read enough about Ralph Reed getting his ass kicked:

In recent weeks, Mr. Reed's Republican opponent, a veteran state senator named Casey Cagle, edged ahead in both fund-raising and independent polls.

Paging Mr. Norquist. Paging Ms. Ridenhour. Paging Rep. Ney.

On Thursday, Mr. Reed, wearing unscuffed cowboy boots and a star-studded belt buckle, surveyed the Cobb County event with confidence, noting that the county typically supplied 1 of every 10 Republican primary voters in the state.

"This is Ralph Reed country right here," he told a reporter. In addition to endorsements from former Senator Zell Miller, a Democrat who has aligned himself with the conservative Christian movement, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, a presidential hopeful eager to improve his connections to religious conservatives, Mr. Reed claims to have 6,000 volunteers on the ground, including more than 70 home-schooled children from 10 states.

So he's got the mentally ill, adulterer and willfully ignorant constitutencies locked up.

[Casey Cagle's advertisements] also cite a little-noted aspect of the link between Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Reed, saying Mr. Reed helped defend an economic system in the Northern Mariana Islands, a United States commonwealth not subject to minimum wage laws, that fostered exploitation of immigrant workers, particularly women. In one commercial, the words "forced abortions" appear next to a grinning Mr. Reed. Mr. Reed's campaign manager has called the link preposterous.

And there's the Bob Barr vote.

In his latest advertisement, Mr. Reed points out that he has not been accused of a crime, adding:

"Vote for me before I'm indicted."

Or, actually,

"I've always worked for what we believe in: faith, family and freedom."

"And loose slots."

"That's why the liberal media has attacked me."

"Why, yes, I do believe you are a fucking moron."

"Because I've stood for you and our conservative values."

"Chinless idiots, the lot of you."

The distant, convoluted nature of the Abramoff scandal cuts both ways in Georgia. On the one hand, it colors Mr. Reed with the taint of Washington. On the other, voters have only a vague notion of its substance. At the Cobb County rally, people variously referred to Mr. Abramoff as Abramson, Abraham and Abramnov.

And, out of the reporter's hearing, as Jewy McJewboy.