By Jack M. Fredericks / Staff

He’s back.

Ralph Reed, once a powerful figure in Georgia GOP politics, is now relegated to the Republican faithful speaking circuit.

But he’s still trying to make a difference.

The North Fulton GOP held its monthly breakfast Saturday with Reed, the often outspoken Georgia native and former head of the Christian Coalition, as the keynote speaker

Everything from eggs and bacon to the 2010 congressional elections was on the menu as members of the Republican faithful got some candid and optimistic insight from Reed.

“I never thought in a million years that Barack Obama becoming president of the United States would be a blessing in disguise but he has woken a lot of people up,” said Reed. He went on to explain that because Obama’s policies are so far out of touch with the mainstream and the president has lost so much support from Republicans and Independents, he has primed the Republican party to stage a massive political takeover this year.

Reed then recalled associating with President Obama when they served together on a working group on social-capital formation. “There were two impressions I had of the president all those years ago,” he said. “First, he was the biggest con artist I had just about ever met in my life … Second was that he was just about the farthest left-wing radical I had ever met in my life.“

Given the ideological persuasion of the partisan gathering, Reed’s remarks drew hearty applause.

Reed said a grassroots movement — much like the one he spearheaded more than a decade ago — is under way in the Republican Party and explained how it is key to winning the elections this year.

“I never thought a person this radical would even get elected to the Illinois State Senate, much less the highest office in the land,” Reed said, “but he did it by getting serious about putting together a grassroots organization and turning out the largest liberal vote this country has ever seen.” According to Reed, that’s what the GOP needs to do in order to take back control of Washington. He said it starts here in North Fulton, with members of the GOP participating in such things as phone-banking and door-to-door campaigning.

Last spring, Reed launched an organization named the Faith and Freedom Coalition to try to utilize the president’s shortcomings (as Reed would describe it) and bring about a grassroots movement on the Republican end of the spectrum. “The organization encompasses all different kinds of faiths,” said Reed, “but we are unapologetically stating that it is faith in God, strong families and individual liberty that made this country great and we are not going to let President Obama undermine those values, we are going to take our country back and it’s going to begin in 2010.”

Reed’s aim is to rally the troops and convincingly wrest control from the D.C. Democrats this fall.

While the goals he has set may be high, Reed remains optimistic, and he says that the 2010 midterm elections must be won not only in the obvious swing state and Congressional district battlegrounds, but also in safely red states like Georgia.

“Everyone must work together toward one common goal: to take back Washington,” he said. “To do that, we have to unite the GOP, and work in unison.”