Abramoff served as Chairman of the Massachusetts Alliance of College Republicans, which organized student volunteers for Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. He graduated with a B.A. in English in 1981. He earned his Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1986. According to Nina Easton, Abramoff gained much of his credibility in the conservative movement through his father, Franklin Abramoff. As president of Diners Club International, Abramoff's father worked closely with Alfred S. Bloomingdale, a personal friend of Reagan. College Republican National Chairman After graduating from Brandeis, Abramoff ran for election as chairman of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC). After a campaign which cost over $11,000 and was managed by Grover Norquist, Abramoff won the election. His chief competitor, Amy Moritz was persuaded to drop out. (Later, as Amy Ridenour, she became a founding director of the National Center for Public Policy Research. She was treated to several trips funded by Jack Abramoff when he was working as a lobbyist.) Abramoff "changed the direction of the [college] committee and made it more activist and conservative than ever before", notes the CRNC. "It is not our job to seek peaceful coexistence with the Left", Abramoff was quoted as saying in the group's 1983 annual report. "Our job is to remove them from power permanently." Norquist served as executive director of the committee under Abramoff. He later recruited Ralph Reed, a former president of the University of Georgia College Republicans chapter, as an unpaid intern. According to Reed's book Active Faith, Reed introduced Abramoff to Pamela Clarke Alexander, and they later married. As chair of the CRNC, Abramoff addressed the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas. Long-standing college political alliances At the CRNC, Abramoff developed political alliances with College Republican chapter presidents across the nation. Many would later hold key roles in state and national politics and business, and some would later interact with Abramoff in his role as a lobbyist. Some of those relationships were at the core of the federal investigation. At the CRNC, Abramoff, Norquist and Reed formed what was known as the "Abramoff-Norquist-Reed triumvirate". After Abramoff's election, the trio purged "dissidents" and re-wrote the CRNC's bylaws to consolidate their control over the organization. According to Easton's Gang of Five, Reed was the "hatchet man" and "carried out Abramoff-Norquist orders with ruthless efficiency, not bothering to hide his fingerprints". In 1983, the CRNC passed a