Sounds like someone is upset that Keyes is off the Deomcratic Plantation....
Posted on 08/14/2004 5:06:17 AM PDT by Libloather
Race-baiting added to GOP repertoire
Derrick K. Baker
The separate announcements that archconservative Alan Keyes has agreed to migrate to Illinois to enter the race for U.S. Senate as the Republican nominee and that unapologetic racist James Hart will represent the GOP in the November congressional election in Tennessee have the net effect of repelling even more disenfranchised and unregistered minority voters.
But maybe that's the goal.
The win-at-all-costs, confrontational brand of politics that again is rearing its ugly head - not that it ever was put to bed - illustrates the deep division that still separates the major parties.
Equally significant and disheartening is the fact that race continues to be carelessly yet strategically lobbed like a nail-filled hand grenade into communities and campaigns far and wide.
Stir in the deadly and conflict-ridden war in Iraq, the finger-pointing of the Sept. 11 commission, the continuing jobless recovery that disproportionately affects minorities and the neck-and-neck race for president, and it's clear as mud why the nation can't afford to suffer another wound - racial or not - that won't heal anytime soon.
Could Keyes' campaign as a staunchly conservative black man who opposes affirmative action and gay rights, who calls affirmative action a "government patronage program" and who wants to replace the income tax with a national sales tax be any more controversial?
Keyes has twice run for president and for the Senate as a Maryland resident. He was recruited by the Illinois Republican State Central Committee, so he can counter the same carpetbagging charges as those he levied at Hillary Clinton in 2000 by noting he didn't seek the opportunity.
But now that he has accepted it, after Republicans winnowed down the list of high-profile candidates to two blacks, how productive will his pledge be to "promise you a battle like this nation has never seen"? If blacks wanted to find a sense of accomplishment and progress in the fact that the Senate race will mark the first time both parties have proffered blacks as candidates, such pride already has been undermined by Keyes' anti-black record and longtime disconnect from the mainstream black community - and detachment from more moderate Republicans as well, for that matter.
Free to join the race and needed by an embarrassed Illinois GOP, which had to replace sex scandal-plagued Jack Ryan, Keyes and the state's Republicans are an embarrassment unto themselves and the voters of Illinois.
Did Republicans play the race card by slating Keyes to run against prohibitive favorite Barak Obama? Have they further deepened the chasm between Democrats and Republicans? Will Keyes alienate as many historically nonvoters as he might motivate?
Despite his obvious eloquence and education, can the morally righteous Keyes not feel the strings attached to his arms like a (sacrificial) puppet in the elementary school play?
Yes, yes, yes and yes.
Despite Keyes' explanation for entering the race - to counter Obama's liberal voting record and support for abortion rights, gun control and taxes - it appears stirring up controversy and attempting to incite conservatives and roil blacks is his intent.
A supremely hypocritical and Illinois-ignorant Keyes should have stayed in Maryland. Illinois, led by racially hyper-segregated Chicago, didn't need the headache he brings, never mind the amount of knowledge he has in his head.
In the case of James Hart in Tennessee, voters will decide whether they will elect a man who has vowed to work toward keeping "less-favored races" from reproducing or immigrating to the United States. Further, he has said so-called " poverty genes" threaten to turn the country into "one big Detroit." He conducted his campaign wearing a protective vest and carrying a pistol.
Although he is unlikely to win in November, as Hart's Democratic opponent John Tanner has spent 16 years in Congress and was re-elected two years ago with 70 percent of the vote, the fact that an unabashed racist who operates a Web site claiming the genetic superiority of white people will contest for a congressional seat representing the Republican Party further burnishes the party's reputation among blacks and other minorities as being wholly intolerant, small-minded and as exclusive as Democrats attempt to be inclusive.
Granting any level of respectability to a candidate who is as racist as Hart or as myopic as Keyes is tantamount to further poisoning an already toxic sociopolitical pool.
Making that reality even more insidious is the well-known and accepted fact that virtually all blacks lack buoyancy and can't swim anyway.
Just ask Keyes and Hart. Blacks don't vote and they can't float, right?
- Derrick K. Baker is a columnist for N'Digo, a Chicago "magapaper for the urbane," 19 N. Sangamon St., Chicago, IL 60607; e-mail: Dbaker1004@aol.com.
Couldn't the very same label be pasted onto Jesse Jackson and his RAT friends?
Sounds like someone is upset that Keyes is off the Deomcratic Plantation....
It could be, but it would be a gross understatement.
Uh, uh, uh. Not so fast Derrick. Keyes entered the race because of Obama's support for legalized infanticide.
You could even go so far as to call his support for infanticide "controversial" or "extreme," but for some reason I doubt you will.
________________________________________________________
These anti-Keyes articles are poppling up all over the country. Keyes has the Dems running scared.
"win-at-all-costs, confrontational brand of politics that again is rearing its ugly head - not that it ever was put to bed - illustrates the deep division that still separates the major parties."
Are we discussing Keyes or Kerry?
Illinois, led by racially hyper-segregated Chicago, didn't need the headache he brings, never mind the amount of knowledge he has in his head.Wow! If that doesn't deserve a "yes massuh" response, I don't know what does.
Idiot writer! If they're "unregistered," they're not "voters," I hope, and if they're "voters," they can't be "disenfranchised," because that MEANS "not able to vote!"
Go AWAY, you illiterate leftist!
Of course it could! But let's not hold our breaths waiting for the DHIMMICRATS to admit for one moment that they are the worst racists this nation has ever seen. They will, of course, defend their worldview of civil rights/civil liberties as the most authentic because it is so "progressive." What galls me is that liberals are not pleased, indeed, go on the defensive, when they are called "liberals." My reasoned opinion is that they are the ones who have abandoned the authentic civil rights movement for something darker (no pun or racialist satire intended) and more sinister.
Like McCain maybe?
Does this mean for a republican to be black equals race baiting and that "real" blacks will now be so confused they won't know what to think?!?
This report is utterly shameful.
Columnist for N'Digo, a Chicago "magapaper for the urbane"
What the ...? Clear as mud allright!
The so called minorities devotion to the Demoncrats is unbelievable but there are cracks in the making. Questions about the "Victimhood" mentality that this article wants to perpetuate are becoming more prevalent as with the Bill Cosby incident. A loud articulate voice,like Ambassador Keyes', will advance this debate and will be a step toward sanity and freedom.
Whew talk about leaving out facts.
Nothing about Keyes positions on the issues, pro-life, pro-tax cuts, pro-protection of marriage, pro-school choice, etc.etc. but this guy leaves out that this yahoo hart got in because he was unnopposed on a ballot in a district where the Pubbies have written off due to a strong and IIRC, conservative for a demo, district.
Manipulative journalism at its worst.
So,
the author is admitting the race-problem in Democrat-controlled Chicago was severe before Keyes entered the picture.
Keyes' presence might help end the stalemate between the races.
Maybe Baker would consider his own views vetted in public. Put them up against Keyes as a pro-life, small government conservative. See who the voters pick. Obama is probably much like Baker. So, maybe we will see.
Obama can count on a very late entry, and a leftwing 'mainstream' out to get Keyes - KEYES IS THE REALLLL CRIMINAL! He'll be mocked on local shows, and national shows. The whole national lib establishment will be out to get him. No paranoia. Sometimes they really are gunning for you - figuratively. Keyes might still win, in the face of constant ridicule and misrepresentation. It's possible.
How easy it must be to be a lib - and how disappointing.
Yes..most Republican candidates would have a hard time being heard in Illinois
That won't be a problem for Alan Keyes.
It's not?
"that archconservative Alan Keyes "
OOOOOOHHHHH!!! "ARCHconservative" !!
Is that worse than "far right wing extremist", or "vast right wing conspiracy"????
These leftist papers make me want to puke.
If Keyes is an "archconservative", so was George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Bejamin Franklin.
These people should get their butts out their rectums - maybe they could then see and hear more clearly.
And this columnist's proof is ...?
Sounds to me this article is a desperate attempt to influence the process.
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