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Tommy Duncan
08-12-2004, 11:50 PM
cbs2chicago.com/politics/...74657.html (http://cbs2chicago.com/politics/local_story_224174657.html)

http://images.viacomlocalnetworks.com/images_sizedimage_224175004/xl

Keyes' Campaign Takes On A Whole New Note

Mike Flannery reports.

Aug 11, 2004 4:40 pm US/Central

CHICAGO (CBS 2) Day four for Republican Alan Keyes' on the campaign trail brings more surprises! First, the senate candidate stopped to sing for CBS 2 News. Then, welcome to Mister Keyes' neighborhood. The out-of-towner will live temporarily in a suburban two-flat in the heart of Democratic territory.

And he seems to revel in delivering it. Keyes is the latest in a long line of politicians to burst into song. And he didn't even wait for an ethnic holiday the way most of them do.

Whether it was an Illinois governor and state senate president or a mayor, Chicago's singing politicians have mostly been rank Amateurs, with only one genuine million-selling professional recording star. Cook County Commissioner. Jerry "The Iceman" Butler may have a rival.

“I've been singing all my life. The first time I went on the state to sing I was six years old in the first grade. Music is a way of releasing, I guess, tensions and also good and bad feelings,” Keyes said.

Republican U.S. Senate nominee Keyes said he studied music at the New England Conservatory and even considered a career in Opera. He said music has shaped his distinctive public speaking style.

“A lot of it has to do with whether you're aware of the music that underlies all conversation. I mean every language, It is musical,” Keyes said.

Alan Keyes promised a different sort of campaign, his critics are finding some of the rhetoric he's been using to be much less than musical.


Mike Flannery

(MMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc., All Rights Reserved.)

Tommy Duncan
08-13-2004, 12:06 AM
www.weeklystandard.com/Co...7qtjpl.asp (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/467qtjpl.asp)

Keyes to a Fiasco
Illinois Republicans decide to make a bad situation worse.

by Mike Murphy
The Weekly Standard

08/09/2004 12:00:00 AM

ILLINOIS REPUBLICANS, at one time a canny and crafty lot, have made a stupid error in hiring Alan Keyes to slap together what's left of the party's U.S. Senate nomination and go howling off into battle against Democrat Barack Obama. The Democrat's wunder-candidate will give this race national attention and the local GOPer's thick-headed Grand Strategy--"hmmm, they've got a black candidate who can give one hell of a speech . . . we need a black candidate who can give a fiery speech"--is likely to set the already tattered Illinois Republican party back at least another five years.

Keyes will be the perfect foil for Obama to campaign against, and the selection of Keyes will seem exactly the shoddy and cynical move that it is. The Republicans should know better.

Obviously, I'm not a big Alan Keyes fan. My last significant encounter with the former ambassador occurred at the door of a local television station in Atlanta Georgia in the spring of 1996. The station was holding a TV debate for the presidential primary and had banned Keyes, who was then running for president. My candidate, former governor Lamar Alexander, and I had the bad timing to enter the station at exactly the moment Keyes was attempting a media stunt that included chaining himself to the front door. A minor scuffle occurred and I remember the priceless look on the normally unflappable Gov. Alexander's face when he realized that he was a split second away from becoming hopelessly chained to a frothing Alan Keyes in front a phalanx of glaring TV lights and news cameras. Zigzagging in a flash like an NFL running back, Alexander shot through the door like a rocket, evading Keyes and pulling me through in his draft alone. It was the highlight of the Alexander for President campaign in Georgia.

I'm certain Ambassador Keyes is now busily at work printing up some "Crazy Times Demand a Crazy Senator" yard signs and oiling his trusty chains for a repeat performance in Chicago this fall. Whatever element of the Illinois GOP that came up with this plan will regret the day they thought it up.

To be the fair the Illinois Republicans has been more than a little snake-bit this year. Jack Ryan, their original candidate, looked perfect on paper and proved himself as a campaigner by winning a competitive primary for the nomination. A wealthy Wall Streeter, Ryan retired young to teach in an inner city boy's school. Alas, he was also tangled up in a messy divorce with formidable Star Trek actress Jeri Ryan, better known as "Seven of Nine"--and every bit as fondly known to young boys of this generation as Julie Newmar's Catwoman was to boys of my own. The Chicago Tribune was far more interested in the details of Jack Ryan's divorce than they apparently are in John Kerry's since they successfully pried Ryan's sealed records open in court. Phrases like "sex club" hit the front pages and the Ryan Senate candidacy was beamed back into outer space.

Since then the increasing desperate Illinois Republican have careened off one non-starter, down-market candidate idea to another with Chicago Bears coaching legend Mike Ditka being the last Big Idea. That fizzled and now they've got Keyes. I'd pity them, except you must remember: They invited Keyes to run. One can only lament that there was no humble state representative or local official public spirited enough to take the great honor of the Illinois Republican party's U.S. Senate nomination and proudly run with it. Instead the Illinois GOP has reached into the remainder bin and allowed a serious nomination to become a cheap and cynical exercise that will only hurt and embarrass the party. Republicans in the land of Lincoln should know better.

Mike Murphy is a political and media consultant


www.weeklystandard.com/Co...2xvivu.asp (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/472xvivu.asp)

Keyes Mailbag
Why is Alan Keyes a bad candidate? Let me count the ways . . .

by Mike Murphy
The Weekly Standard

08/11/2004 12:00:00 AM

MY ESSAY berating the Illinois Republican party for enlisting Alan Keyes as their Senate candidate has generated a hefty pile of emails from Keyes's many cyber-fans. Since the letters all ask the same questions or make the same points, I thought a brief response was due. The missives fall into two categories. The first goes something like, "Hey Wise guy, we get the fact that you can't stand AMBASSADOR Keyes, but you didn't give us one single legitimate reason why it is a bad idea for him to be the Republican candidate in Illinois."

Dear Respect the One Former Office Alan Keyes Held,
I thought the Keyes weakness is painfully obvious, but here goes: The job of a political candidate is to attract people to a party's political philosophy and bring victory to the party on Election Day. In two U.S. Senate races and two presidential campaigns, Alan Keyes has done the exact opposite: shown a great ability to stampede voters away from his candidacy like a herd of panicking animals fleeing a huge volcanic eruption. Even Keyes' cable TV chat show, with its unforgettably Orwellian title, Alan Keyes Is Making Sense was abruptly cancelled for low ratings. When voters listen to a successful candidate they get a strong feeling that this person can do the job and make life better. When voters listen to Alan Keyes, they get the perception, "wow, this guy is stone cold nuts" and they run home to hide their children. We Republicans are the free market party, so look to Keyes's prior history in elections and trust the market.

My larger point is this: the desperate Illinois GOP chose Keyes not because he is a serious or legitimate candidate, but because he is black. Watching my party debase a Senate nomination with such a cynical and stupid move embarrasses me as a proud Republican.

THE SECOND CATEGORY of email, like Keyes, has a spicy Old Testament flavor:

"Dear Secular Satan, you and your godless pals at the NY Times don't get it. Alan Keyes is a beacon of moral clarity in a time when dark forces portend a holocaust upon the innocent unborn. Trash like your so-called article doesn't belong in The Weekly Standard. It is an honor and credit to the GOP that Amb. Keyes is running with such great courage and . . ." etc, etc.

Dear Reverend,
I agree, opposing abortion with great rhetorical clarity is indeed Keyes's keystone issue. The dilemma is Keyes hails from in the Victory Through Superior Decibels wing of the pro-life movement. Closely linked to the Victory Through Shocking Fetus Pictures faction, this view holds that you win the abortion argument by beating the other side, and all others, over their figurative heads until they finally submit. I think that approach only helps pro-abortion activists isolate and vilify pro-lifers. It moves the cause backwards, not forwards.

Keyes is only two days into his campaign, and he already has invoked "God" as the subject of many a campaign sentence. We'll see how the happy sinners of Chicago respond.

Mike Murphy is a political and media consultant.

Joe Chalupa
08-13-2004, 02:12 AM
He sure ain't no Alicia Keys that's for sure.

Nbadan
08-13-2004, 04:25 AM
When voters listen to Alan Keyes, they get the perception, "wow, this guy is stone cold nuts" and they run home to hide their children.

That's great. :lol

Johnny Blaze 47
08-13-2004, 11:10 AM
With the big story yesterday and that picture, I thought Keyes was getting ready to resign, too.

:wacko

Tommy Duncan
08-13-2004, 12:08 PM
It's a shame, given his intellect and passion. In retrospect he should have initially run for a House seat in a Republican friendly district instead of a Senate seat in Maryland. Also, there's nothing wrong with being outspoken but there is definitely something wrong with too outspoken all the damn time.

Given his inital connections in politics (Jean Kirkpatrick, Reagan, etc) you would think that he would have gotten some decent advice on how to plan his political career.

Emeril Lagasse
08-13-2004, 12:44 PM
Keyes chances of winning...BAMM!...are gone.

Nbadan
08-13-2004, 06:24 PM
The politics of tokenism - The Republicans have made a bad mistake in pitting Alan Keyes against Barack Obama



"THREE weeks ago in Boston, the Democrats witnessed the birth of a new black star in Barack Obama, their candidate for the open Senate seat in Illinois. Now the Republicans have conjured up a black star of their own to do battle with the self-described skinny guy with an odd name. Alan Keyes, talk-show host, holy-roller social conservative, Maryland resident and sometime presidential candidate, will take Mr Obama on.

The thinking behind this is beguiling in its simplicity: the Democrats have a black man who can give a rafter-raising speech, so we had better find a rafter-raising black man too. Beguiling, but stupid. Mr Keyes's Senate run will produce nothing but disaster—humiliation for Mr Keyes, more pie on the face of the already pie-covered Illinois Republican Party, and yet another setback for Republican efforts to woo minority voters.

Mr Keyes's problems start with his personality. The Republicans' new champion is the very opposite of cool. In 1996 he chained himself to the front door of a television station in Atlanta, Georgia, to protest against a decision to exclude him from a presidential debate (he was then mounting the first of his two bids for the presidency). His speeches can certainly be eloquent. But they can also be intemperate and plain weird, particularly on the subject of gays.

..."

The Economist (http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3084427)

ChumpDumper
08-14-2004, 06:00 PM
I thought Republicans were against affirmative action.