Although Ralph Reed has received millions of dollars in legal income for his lobbying efforts, he has not explained why he devotes an extraordinary amount of his time, energy, and creativity to concealing its sources. Reed, the former Christian Coalition leader who is running as a Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor in Georgia, has so far avoided giving the public full answers to frequent and embarrassing questions about his covert funding.

Reed has received some five million dollars in payments that originated from gambling industry clients of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He claims that he had no knowledge that the money originated from the gambling industry. And he has not been charged with wrongdoing in connection with payments that originated from Abramoff or Abramoff's clients. However, Reed has not explained to voters why he used a complicated series of cut-outs to conceal the true sources of much of this funding, including a particular check he received in the amount of $150,000. And this key transaction -- just one among many -- illustrates how much time, effort, and brainpower Reed devoted to keeping the sources of his funding secret. Here's a graphic depiction of how money that originated from eLottery Inc. -- a Connecticut firm that opposed a Congressional bill to ban Internet gambling -- made its way through the hands of two men since convicted of felonies before it reached Reed's lobbying firm, whose efforts helped to kill the bill.