Rodent Republicans Were someone to discover “a rat head in the bottom of the bottle,” Norquist said, “Coke’s brand would be ruined for everyone.

“Republican elected officials who vote to increase taxes are rat heads in a Coke bottle.”

—Grover Norquist, June 2011

Three days before Ralph Reed brought 800 Evangelicals to Washington, the New York Times ran an article anticipating the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference Reed had organized. Faith & Freedom is Reed’s new startup, an advocacy group intended to get Christians engaged in the 2012 elections. There was a small conference last year; this was to be a more ambitious event. But the Times story was a profile of Reed, not his organization. And despite the space it dedicated to him, it only briefly addressed his past transgressions…