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This week, Ralph Reed, chairman and CEO of Century Strategies and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, is author of the new political thriller, The Confirmation, about a Supreme Court–confirmation fight. You'll see echoes of the fights over Clarence Thomas, Miguel Estrada, John Roberts, and Sam Alito in it. You'll see strategy and backroom maneuvers and Beltway crime and punishment from an insider's viewpoint. Reed talks about his latest novel -- his second (and there is another in the works) -- with National Review Online editor-at-large Kathryn Jean Lopez.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Why write a book on a judicial confirmation? Is that the most dramatic, interesting event we've got in politics, now that conventions aren't what they used to be?

#ad#Ralph Reed: I was fascinated by what might happen if a Democrat-turned-independent elected president by social conservatives nominated the swing justice to the Supreme Court and sent the nomination to a Democratic Senate whose majority leader lost to him in the previous presidential campaign. Having had a front-row seat to seven Supreme Court nominations, with Clarence Thomas's nomination being the most memorable, I thought it was a great way to pull back the curtain on how Washington really works.

Lopez: I don't think I walked away from your book hating any character. And I was totally tempted. Did you plan it that way? 

Reed: No, but my editor told me something early on that helped me as an author of fiction. He said, 'Ralph, no one is completely evil or entirely good. Even evil people have admirable qualities, and good people have a little larceny in their heart.' That made sense to me, and I wrote accordingly. Dr. Andrew H. Stanton, the evangelical leader, is a good and moral man, but also a brass-knuckled political player. Bob Long finds God and has upstanding character but is also a little like Tony Blair, a good and decent man who can be coldly calculating and constantly maneuvering to achieve victory. Politics is a contact sport. There are not many people who rise to the top in politics without knowing how to take a punch and throw a good one. I tried to portray that, and I hope it makes The Confirmation authentic.

Lopez: In the very opening of The Confirmation, the president-elect's fingers are shaking as he does his tie before his inauguration as president. Do men really reach that level with that kind of nervousness?

REED: You bet. The moment before anyone walks out on stage in front of a billion people, they feel nervous. Either that or they're dead. I've been with presidential or vice-presidential candidates before they walk on stage in a nationally televised debate, and everyone, from the candidate to the family to the campaign staff and handlers, is a little jumpy, even if they try to hide it. There's a lot on the line -- maybe the election, perhaps their political career.

Lopez: Is your Andy Stanton Rick Warren?

Reed: No; nor is it Andy Stanley (Charles Stanley's son), even though the name is similar. I have had evangelical leaders tell me with absolute certitude Andy was based on them. I get a kick out of that because it tells me I might have nailed the character. In truth, Andy is not based on any one person. He is an amalgam of all the religious leaders I've encountered over the decades who impressed me with their toughness, their intelligence, their vision, and their larger-than-life personalities. The last name was chosen as an homage to Jack Stanton, the character based on Bill Clinton in Primary Colors by Joe Klein. I wanted the first name to be accessible or familiar, which I found to be the case with many evangelical leaders. Usually they were known simply as 'Jerry,' 'Pat,' or 'Billy.' No matter how big Billy Graham got, he was always 'Billy' to everyone. That's where I got the name. The rest came naturally from all my encounters, some of which I hope are entertaining. 

Lopez: Do you get tired of questions like that one? Or do you just enjoy that people get into the characters and care enough to ask? 

Reed: I love the fact that the characters are so real to people. They are real to me, in part because they are based on real people from real campaigns. Almost every word of dialogue actually happened. I merely changed the names to protect the innocent and the guilty. 

#page#Lopez: During a presidential inaugural prayer, the preacher (Stanton) does something predictable but controversial. You write, 'The entire news cycle was lost because of six words in Andy Stanton's prayer. It was a total nightmare.' Does that happen more often than not in politics?

Reed: Oh, yes. That was another episode I saw play out in real life. Franklin Graham closed with the words 'in the name of Jesus Christ' at Bush 43's first inaugural in 2001, sparking a contretemps, and I believe a lawsuit by the ACLU. I was actually writing The Confirmation when Rick Warren was selected to give the prayer at Obama's inaugural and it sparked protests from the gay-rights groups because he had supported Proposition 8 in California. I thought, 'I'm writing it here, it comes out there.'

#ad#Lopez: Do you have a favorite real-life example of that at work?

Reed: Too many to recount here. Stay tuned for the next book.

Lopez: So what's more fun, real politics or inventing politics? 

Reed: Real politics is more fun, which is why I continue to practice it. But I have enjoyed fictionalizing my experiences and sharing them with people so they could see what it is like behind the curtain. One can be a lot more honest in fiction than one can be in memoirs at times. It's a very liberating and honest art form.

Lopez: Isn't it hard to compete with the real stuff these days?

Reed: Absolutely! The Obama-Clinton rivalry, to cite just one example, will go down in history, and may still play out in interesting ways. But it's fun trying.  

Lopez: Where do you come up with a name like Senator Penneymounter?

Reed: I needed a name that captured the personality of a blowhard politician utterly lacking in self-knowledge. Given Penneymounter's wandering eye, I wanted something memorable with carnal overtones.

Lopez: Tell me the truth. You got 'a five-course dinner that climaxed with flaming baked Alaska' from a National Review cruise?

Reed: No, but I'll get an NR cruise into the next novel, I assure you!

Lopez: 'Although he was a preacher, Andy could negotiate like a Teamster.' Have you met your fair share of preachers who can do such? 

Reed: Absolutely. I had a naïve view of evangelical leaders at the outset of my career, not unlike the media caricature: backwood preachers who made it big, perhaps lacking in sophistication. I can tell you the very opposite is true. The ones I have known were smart as whips and very savvy businessmen or businesswomen. Show me a preacher who has built a megachurch or major ministry and I'll show you a very gifted leader and entrepreneur. 

Lopez: 'At least this will make for a good story in my memoir.' Do people in Washington really think that way? 

Reed: Maybe not everyone, but a lot of people in Washington hope to write a memoir. The only question is whether the advance is worth burning the bridges. I suppose that's why I prefer fiction. I've always had an aversion to revealing things I saw or heard in confidence by candidates or elected officials for whom professional discretion was assumed, if not required. If I ever do write a memoir, it won't be boring.

Lopez: Opus Dei makes it into The Confirmation. Was that a shameless ploy to get Ron Howard to option the movie rights?

Reed: No. It really came out of the shameful way John Roberts and Samuel Alito were treated by some of their opponents. As I recall, Dick Durbin asked Judge John Roberts whether he could separate his Roman Catholic faith from his rulings on certain cases. So I thought I'd take anti-Catholic suspicion, which in some cases curdles into bigotry, a dark thread running throughout American history, and highlight it a little bit.

#page#Lopez: When people ask you -- well, as I guess I am now -- 'Why is Ralph Reed writing novels?' what do you say? 

Reed: I tried my hand at fiction when I was a child, and I always desired to write novels. I just never got around to it, and was side-tracked by a doctorate in history and then a political career. When my agent suggested in 2006 that I give fiction a try, I decided to follow his advice. The response from readers has been so enthusiastic, far more than with my non-fiction books in the 1990s, that I'm going to keep at fiction for a season.

#ad#Lopez: You write at one point, 'He wanted to serve on the Supreme Court; he just wasn't sure he wanted to go through the confirmation process.' Is that too often true? 

Reed: No question. There is a long list of people who have declined to be nominated, and not just for federal judgeships. The confirmation process is broken. I try to highlight that in The Confirmation. We need a new, bipartisan approach to reforming the judicial-confirmation process. A good starting point is the proposal George W. Bush put forward as a presidential candidate, which called for federal judges to notify the administration of a retirement twelve months prior to its effective date (I don't believe this applied to Supreme Court justices), with the president submitting a nominee to fill the vacancy within six months and the Senate acting on the nomination within temporal limits. This would limit the number of vacancies and prevent the languishing of nominees for years without even a committee hearing.  

Lopez: Is there an underlying message in The Confirmation? Maybe especially about pain in politics? I wonder especially if there is a message for some of those who will be new to Washington in the fall. 

Reed: The main message can be found in Ephesians, 'We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of darkness.' Not every political struggle is spiritual, but there are many political and policy disputes that have a spiritual dimension. I like to think of The Confirmation as Advise and Consent meets The Screwtape Letters.

Lopez: Do you have a favorite character in The Confirmation?

Reed: Not really, but I like Jay Noble for his brilliance, his razor-sharp political instincts, and his adolescent yearnings. I suppose in the end the story is as much his as it is the president's or his Supreme Court nominee's. I find myself pulling for Jay to find happiness in God. 

Lopez: Is any character most like you? Would you tell me if so?

Reed: By the very nature of fiction there's a little bit of me in all of them, including the female characters. Probably Jay Noble, Bob Long, and Ross Lombardy. The latter character has a job similar to my former role at the Christian Coalition, so I identify with him, as I do with a lot of the other characters. I've worn a lot of different hats in my career, so all the characters allow me try them on and give voice to different people. 

-- Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on September 19, 2010 (boomark / email).