Ralph Reed's message to the GOP convention. - Get used to it. You will hear it over and over and over.

"I am a mainstream, balanced-budget, tax-cutting, pro-life, pro-family conservative," Reed said. "I believe, unlike our critics, those issues are not a liability to our party. They are an asset.

"They beat in the hearts and they are cherished in the souls of millions of Georgians and they are the keys to keeping the Republican majority."

(5-7-05, The Savannah Morning News.)

Reed . . . promised a "bold" agenda and "grass-roots" fervor that would benefit the entire Republican ticket in November 2006. He named transportation, education and taxes as his priorities.

"We have some big issues to tackle. We have some of the highest income and property taxes in the Southeastern United States. It's one of the reasons why Florida created 176,000 new jobs last year, and we created only 40,000," he told reporters afterwards.

(5-7-05, AJC.)

Jim Galloway of the AJC also notes:

[Cagel and Reed e]ach gave strong hints that the 11th Commandment forbidding Republicans from speaking ill of each other would be bent, if not broken.