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Who did I flame?

Have I called you names?

Consider for a moment: Alan Keyes has proposed race-based tax breaks as reparations for the descendents of slaves, while the Illinois Senatorial nominee for the Republican Party.

What have I ever done that makes me a greater detriment to the conservative cause than that?

Please provide links and sources.

No, but because despite his talents, Keyes is a loose and self-destructive cannon.

That self-destructive streak isn't helpful to other party members.

For years I've watched the lame "who do you want, Hillary?" retorts in this forum on countless threads where President Bush was criticized. Now we're getting "who do you want, Obama?" responses from Keyes supporters, for the same reason:

To stifle honest debate and criticism of their man.

No, I grokked it, and disagreed.

That's a nice attempt, but it won't fly.

Disagreements over reparations, carpetbagging, and Keyes' record as a politician (and his electability) are not only honest, they are necessary.

No, the question was whether "Alan Keyes is still one of the best politicians in America on a whole range of bedrock issues," or not.

Great politicians win elections. Keyes hasn't.

Oh stop.

Hard core Keyes supporters want to torture the truth on behalf of their man, in the name of the GOP. I don't let that slide with Bush, and I sure won't let it slide with Keyes.

I voted for Keyes in the '96 primary, and if I was an Illinois voter I'd have voted for him this year... until he floated his race-based reparations lunacy.

Now I'm on the fence. Ask me around Halloween if I think Keyes would be a good Senator.

How is he on winning elections?

Primaries?

If he never wins, how is he better than any third party candidate? What's his impact?

Yeah, Keyes did fingerpaint himself into that corner.

(How does the greatest conservative orator do that, exactly?)

Now we have to redefine carpetbagging to get him off the hook?

Why can't the great orator just orate himself out of his dilemma?

A stunt's a stunt's a stunt.

I might even vote for a stunt occasionally, but it'll still be a stunt.

1. John O'Niell was on the Dick Cavett Show

2. Dick Cavett once had Jimi Hendrix as a guest.

3. Hendrix played with Buffalo Springfield at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.

4. Jim Messina of Buffalo Springfield was in Loggins and Messina.

5. Kenny Loggins did the title song from "Footloose."

6. "Footloose" starred Kevin Bacon

Yes, that's it exactly.

Aside from the fact that Jesse Helms served five terms as a Senator, was a forerunner of the GOP realignment in the South, Chaired powerful committees, and didn't spout crackpot nonsense at inopportune times, the similarities with Alan Keyes are quite striking.

This is illegal because?

I said it was "illegal" or "immoral" where...?

All I've said is that carpetbagging is carpetbagging.

If John Kyl carpetbagged in California, I'd vote for him. If Jim Kolbe did, I wouldn't.

Some Reconstruction Era carpetbaggers chose more profitable locales than others, yet they were all carpetbaggers.

The choice to become a political carpetbagger doesn't occur when the decision is made as to which non-residential race to enter, but whether to enter a non-residential race at all.

Whatever his motives, whatever his invitations, this is the decision that Keyes has made.

You are the one refusing to accept the meaning of the word, "carpetbagger."

By your definition, was Hillary a carpetbagger? RFK?

Of course Illinois has that right/power/prerogative, that's not in contention.

You cannot claim that Alan Keyes is not a carpetbagger with any credibility.

Alan Keyes did not seek a position in Illinois. After being invited to discuss the situation by the Illinois GOP State Central Committee, he decided to accept their decision to nominate him.

You're going to stake your claim on "presumptuously?"

That's a loophole so wide that no politician could be called a carpetbagger.

Once again, the term, in modern political parlance, means to move to new state or locality to run for office. Some will see such campaigns as presumptuous, and some won't, so that's not a valid qualifier, nor is it the common undestanding.

You can cite any dictionary you like, but we're talking about a Reconstruction Era term that's being applied to a modern political practice. For the term to have meaning, it can't be so overqualified as to be rendered meaningless.

If Alan Keyes is not a carpetbagger (in the modern parlance), the term is meaningless.

If you want to pursue this endlessly, you have an appointment with a genie and a bottle.

It will not be a loss, if Keyes loses. It will be building an organized, unifeed base.

Mmmm... unifeed.

Please Sir, may I have some more?

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=carpetbagger

car·pet·bag·ger
n.

A Northerner who went to the South after the Civil War for political or financial advantage.

An outsider, especially a politician, who presumptuously seeks a position or success in a new locality.

_______________________________________________

Ok, meditate on this.

Do you mean to tell me this isn't the Era of Reconstruction? Who knew?

Once again...

Keyes lived in another state, and moved to Illinios to run for Senate.

Doesn't matter why, whether relenting to entreaties or going on listening tours, that's what he did. That's called, in modern political parlance, "carpetbagging."

By the definition you just gave, Hillary Clinton weren't Senatorial carpetbaggers either. Anyone can finesse "presumptuously seeks a position," especially those who win the offices they seek, as opposed to Keyes, who won't.

Seriously, you should obsess over that one word. Rally the faithful!

What an a$$hole. I mean, really. This is right out of a Woody Allen movie.

Does Kerry have a stepdaughter?

KERRY: "When we dedicated swift boat one in '92, I said to all the swift guys that I wasn't talking about the swifties, I was talking about all the rest of the veterans."

Kerry broadbrushed the American military as perpetrating war crimes, atrocities, and the murders of 200,000 Vietnamese annually in 1971, and immediately amended his statement to exempt the Swift Vets... in 1992.

So, in 1971, the Swift Boat forces should have known Kerry wasn't talking about them. Is that perfectly clear?

It was nice, too, of Senator Kerry to reiterate his war crimes charges against every other Vietnam Vet.

Is that undiscovered shrapnel, or did Kerry just blow his foot clean off?

That soap just doesn't sell.

Keyes lived in another state, and moved to Illinios to run for Senate.

Doesn't matter why, whether relenting to entreaties or going on listening tours, that's what he did. That's called, in modern political parlance, "carpetbagging." There's no point trying to split that hair.

Now, there are wild circumstances in Illinois, given Ryan's withdrawal, and I don't have a hard position on carpetbagging, though I lean aganst it, but if you are going to spin your wheels on that one word you aren't going to garner a single additional vote for Keyes.