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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 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 compe ive 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
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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 le, 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 y 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.