Elizabeth Holmes reports from Atlanta on the presidential race.

Ralph Reed was a no-show at a fund-raiser for John McCain Monday evening, following nearly a week of considerable drama surrounding his involvement in the senator’s campaign.

The Republican candidate had come under fire for associating with Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition who fell from grace after his involvement with lobbyist Jack Abramoff. McCain was one of the leaders of the investigation of Abramoff’s lobbying activities that led to his imprisonment. Reed was never charged.

By many accounts, Reed injected himself into the recent debate. He sent an email to friends announcing his participation in the fund raiser, which he says was a call for more support. Others took it as an assertion of his involvement with the campaign, going so far as to insinuate he was hosting the event.

Yet the Democrats jumped on the email, first posted by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, calling McCain a hypocrite. On a conference call hosted by the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Henry Waxman said Reed’s involvement makes McCain “reformer no more” and called it an “example of John McCain abandoning his principles on the campaign trail.”

In an interview with Washington Wire, Reed expressed surprise at the public outcry. He said he was not a host or even on the planning committee, just a Republican trying to help the candidate.

“You know, I’ve had differences in the past with Sen. McCain but frankly those pale into insignificance compared with the stark differences between these two nominees and what is at stake in this election,” Reed said during an Aug. 13 phone conversation.

On Monday evening, there was no sign of Reed at the Marriott Marquis here and no mention of him by McCain during his remarks. A campaign spokesperson confirmed that Reed would not be in attendance but declined to say whether the campaign had asked him to keep his distance.

That didn’t stop the Obama campaign from issuing a “response” to the absence. “Faced with the embarrassing prospect of holding a fundraiser with one of Jack Abramoff’s closest associates, the McCain campaign scrambled today scratch Ralph Reed from tonight’s program,” Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement. “The real question isn’t why Reed isn’t showing up, but why a so-called reformer would invite him at all.”